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A collection of scholarly works about individual liberty and free markets. A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.
The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XV - The Later Letters of John Stuart Mill 1849-1873 Part II, ed. Francis E. Mineka and Dwight N. Lindley (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1972). https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/252,
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Vol. 15 of the 33 vol. Collected Works contains Mill's letters written between 1856-1864.
The online edition of the Collected Works is published under licence from the copyright holder, The University of Toronto Press. ©2006 The University of Toronto Press. All rights reserved. No part of this material may be reproduced in any form or medium without the permission of The University of Toronto Press.
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Je n'ai reçu votre aimable billet que ce matin—Je regrette bien ne pas pouvoir profiter de votre invitation pour ce soir et je vous prie de croire que je n'en désire pas moins la réalisation de l'espérance que vous m'avez donnée de vous voir plus souvent et de comparer mes idées avec les vôtres sur les grandes questions qui occupent aujourd'hui tous les esprits élevés. Je vous engage à ne pas vous décourager de venir à mon bureau par l'idée que vous me dérangerez. La semaine dernière a été exceptionnelle pour moi. Ordinairement, à l'exception du mercredi, mes occupations de bureau sont de nature à pouvoir être ajournées au moins pour une heure ou deux.
My wife has told you that we were much interested in the account of the Institution2 you have founded at Adelaide. Such means for the education of the young & the useful instruction of the old, are more important, if that be possible, in a new than even in an old country, as the helps & instruments to self cultivation are apt to be more scanty, & what is done or left undone now, will determine in a great measure what part the future Australian nation will take in the advancement of the world.Edition: current; Page: [504]
You are aware that Mr Duffy3 has lately emigrated to Australia. His immediate destination is Melbourne but in case anything should lead him to Adelaide I have ventured to assure him that you would be glad to see him or to be useful to him. He is a very valuable acquisition both privately & publicly to any colony in which he may determine to establish himself.
My wife's health has been very precarious since her attack of hemorrhage4 but this last summer & autumn it has improved, & I have great hopes that she at last will now recover from that attack. She has suffered greatly both in feelings & in health from the unprincipled conduct of Arthur Ley & his wife about the Trusteeship of her marriage settlement.5 Her wish alone ought to have been sufficient to make him resign it—but when the immediate ground of our asking it was (tho' of course not so said to him) that she knew from Caroline herself that he was not only in pecuniary difficulties but that there was a deficiency in his accounts as Treasurer of a Turnpike Trust, a man with the ordinary amount of honour & honesty would have been anxious to do so. Herbert's not joining in the request6 was entirely immaterial as the settlement gives the power exclusively to her, & his not choosing to ask it was merely an instance of his usual contradictory disposition. My wife has sent you a copy of Caroline's letter, full of vulgar taunts & malevolent insinuations. You might suppose from this that she had given some offence to Mrs Ley, or that there had been some previous quarrel, but there had been nothing of the kind—for some reason of her own, & very foolishly, Mrs Ley suddenly changed from her usual professions of great affection & regard, to this insulting letter, & this is the only answer she has given. My wife's last letters both to her & Arthur Ley remain unanswered.
I found that the only legal protection in our power against a fraudulent trustee is to lay a distringas7 on the stock which prevents the possibility of its being transferred without notice given. This would enable us to apply to the Court of Chancery for an injunction. I have therefore taken this precaution, without which any accident to the other trustee would leave my wife's & the children's property entirely insecure.
Pray present my compliments to Mrs Hardy & believe me
I am sorry to hear that you have got into the difficulty you mention,2 and am willing to assist. But first I must request you tell me exactly how much of the £130 you see any prospect of raising and whether £130 is the whole of what you can be called on to pay in consequence of bills accepted by you for Mr Leblond.
I am
I inclose a cheque for £70, being a loan of £35 each from myself and another friend of freethinking opinions.2 This sum I think will complete the amount you require.3
You must excuse me for saying that in making yourself liable for Mr Leblond's bill transactions you were throwing money which you could not spare into the mere gulf of a bankruptcy—injuring yourself and those dependent Edition: current; Page: [506] on you without doing your friend any good, and throwing away the possible means of serving him afterwards. It would have been a totally different thing if by so doing you could have saved him. I am
I have done pretty well, dearest one, to get here in one day from Besançon—to do which I had to take a char at Orbe but I walked most part of the way, which was very agreeable after going to Pontarlier by the malle poste on a most uncomfortable outside seat, & stewing inside the diligence from Pontarlier to Orbe, seeing little or nothing. But I am well recompensed darling by this place. How very much I wish my own only one could see it. It is the very picture of peace. From my window I look quite up the lake & to the end of its valley which is called even on fingerposts Lavallée (par excellence). It is five or six leagues in length but you see entirely down or rather up the vista as it is quite straight, & the lake, though small compared with those we have lately seen, yet long enough & broad enough for beauty, lies between its bright green slopes which though very high for the Jura, do not shew their height from the great elevation of this valley but are covered with the richest & finest Jura pastures & Jura woods. The villages, this & another smaller one, do not in the least detract from the air of quiet—they are all large well looking houses, evidently inhabited only by their inhabitants, & looking straight upon the lake. The water itself is as peaceful as it is bright & clear. It has no apparent outlet, being entirely imbedded in hills—a bend (the only one) in the valley just at this place separates the Lac de Joux from a very beautiful smaller lake below it, quite shut in by mountains, but the water all seems to Edition: current; Page: [507] come out under ground into the Valorbe, another valley at a great depth below this, & so cut off from it that the road to this does not even lie through that: I enjoy the place much & you may suppose I am very well when I say that after climbing the Mont Tendre, a most beautiful mountain, one of the highest of the Jura, which with a rest on the grass at the top & the return took six hours, I only staid half an hour to eat a crust of bread & drink a whole jug of milk, & set off again to climb another mountain & make a round which took another five hours—& I am not now more tired than is agreeable. The views of the Alps here are splendid, especially that from the Mont Tendre—in spite of a great deal of haze towards Berne & Savoy. I saw the snowy range for a great distance, Mont Blanc tolerably & the Dent du Midi, the nearer Valais mountains & the whole lake of Geneva from end to end well, also the lake of Neuchâtel, the whole Jura, & France I should think nearly to Dijon. The evening walk was still finer: the bit of Valorbe which I descended to get to the source of the Orbe (the place where the water of the two lakes is supposed to come out) equals anything I ever saw—a narrow gorge between precipices but itself full of the richest Jura verdure of pasture & wood so high as almost to hide the precipices: & the source with its exquisite clearness & great mass of water coming out from under an amphitheatre of precipice in the heart of a wood far surpasses Vaucluse. I also went over in the rocks above a really immense cave but without any stalactites. If my beloved one was with me I could stay here with pleasure the whole week—the inn would do—a little below the mark of St. Martin but larger rooms. As it is I shall leave tomorrow: for quiet enjoyment one requires to be two—by oneself there is nothing but activity. I have been much tempted to go to Annecy—being so near & finding that those who left Besançon with me were to get to Geneva the same evening by aid of railway & steamboat. But I have resisted the temptation & shall go to Yverdon tomorrow—if the rest of the Jura were to be like this I should lose nothing. I shall put in this letter probably at Yverdon & I hope to be in time for the steamer & to land not at Neuchâtel but at St Aubin on the west bank from which Murray says it is but four miles to the Creux du Vent. What I shall do afterwards I do not know except that I shall return to Besançon from la Chaux de Fonds & shall try first to see Weissenstein & the Val Moutiers. This place has rather spoilt me for other places & this lake for other lakes. How very different a surroundment my darling's has been these two days. No doubt she is now in Paris & I so hope in a not unpleasant lodging. Though I am very glad to have been here I am not half reconciled to the separation from my dear one—& the more I like the place the more I long for her presence. But I will try to make the time as useful as possible for my health & you see I have begun well today. Adieu my dearest wife with a thousand loves & kisses—your own
My dearest love, I wrote twice to Paris, once on Wednesday & once on Friday,2 which I hope came safely to her dear hands. The last brought me to that pretty little place Sonceboz, which lies at the junction of a valley & two gorges, one going downward & the other upward, both most beautiful: the valley is that of St Imier & is a good deal like the Val Travers. It is a very small neat village & would be very quiet, but as it is on the principal road into Switzerland by way of Bâle, & the diligences & voitures all stop here, there is generally some bustle going on. The inn is decidedly good, as well as decidedly cheap: I was charged 1½ franc a day for a good bedroom & bed, & the same for my usual breakfast: ½ franc a day for service. I got out at ½ past 8 yesterday & explored the whole of the Val Moutiers: going through the upper of the two gorges & through the Pierre Pertuis, which is not a tunnel being not longer than a mere gateway, the gorge being singularly closed by a mere wall of rock. This led into the Val Moutiers at Tavannes, for many miles beyond which it was an open valley in the full glare of the sun: the beauty consists in two narrow defiles, one above the other below Moutiers. I dined at a one o'clock table d'hôte at Moutiers & then walked on to the last turn in the further of the two defiles, from which the end of it is seen at a short distance. They are fine, but to us who have seen so much, not extraordinary: you have only to imagine a cleft winding through precipitous fir clad rocks of great height, in general just large enough for the road & the little river. The oddity is that the flat thick tables of which this rock is composed, instead of lying horizontal one on another, have been thrown up on end & stand vertically—& as many of them have mouldered or been washed out, those which remain are in some places like buttresses or gigantic bits of wall at right angles to the road. From Moutiers I took a car part of the way back (to Tavannes) & arrived a little before 8. This morning I started at ½ past 5 in the coupé of the malle poste along the Val St Imier (green & full of villages) then over a dividing ridge to this place—which is not at all like what I expected. Murray's description of a great straggling village, composed of cottages each standing in its bit of ground, is as opposite to the truth as can be conceived—it would be thought in England a compact town, & there is not a cottage in it—all large Edition: current; Page: [509] houses & large blocks of houses, abutting at once on green fields at the outskirts, in a way which reminded me of Brighton—there are about half a dozen houses which have bits of garden in front like our suburbs & about half a dozen square patches of garden ground within the limits of the town: it has nothing whatever of a village except that it is macadamized instead of paved. Murray's description must be copied from some old one: it looks an upstart place, having no promenades or planted trees like Neuchâtel though it has more inhabitants. Murray is equally out as to the country, which he calls bleak, desolate & bare of wood. It is one of the open valleys with sloping sides & those have fewer trees than the narrow ones, but this has many & is most cheerful & inspiriting. I have had a beautiful walk: first to a pass called the Col des Loges, about half way to Neuchâtel which is noted for the view of the Alps, & though it was very hazy, I saw a part of them very well: then a round over the summits climbing another noted mountain called Tête du Rond3 (or something sounding like it) from which the view of the Alps, Jura &c is still finer, then back through woods, over mountains & across the loveliest green valleys. The mountains though high are not a great height above this valley which is itself extremely high. I do not like the town; it is the only blemish in the [paper torn] Tomorrow I go to Locle & the Saut du Doubs, & that will be the finale. I have taken my place for Tuesday for Besançon when I shall have the happiness of finding a letter from her & in two days after I shall see her again. It seems already an enormous time since I parted from her. Time never seems long when I am with her, whether it is at home or travelling. I believe this journey has set me up as to health—I am afraid it has done very little for [paper torn] to the heat [paper torn]
On returning a few days ago from the Continent I found your note inclosing the reprint of my wife's article in the W.R.2 on the enfranchisement of women. I think you were not justified in reprinting it without asking Edition: current; Page: [510] the permission of the author which you could easily have done through me, still less with many errors in the reprint. I have marked the principal of them in the margin of the copy you sent. One particularly offensive is the excessive vulgarity of substituting "woman" for "Women"; this occurs in several places and in the first paragraph. One of the purposes of writing the article was to warn the American women to disunite their cause from the feeble sentimentality which exposes it to contempt & of which the stuff continually talked & written about "woman" may be taken as a symbol & test,—& it is therefore very disagreeable to the writer to see this piece of vulgarity prominent on the face of the article itself.
We are glad to hear that there was one lady at the Convention3 who objected to the nonsense attacked in the concluding paragraph.4
I did not receive your letter until more than a fortnight after its arrival, as we had not yet returned from our summer excursion, which this year was to Switzerland—& since we have been at home I have had so many things to write & to do that I have been unable to answer it until now. What you say concerning your Institution for working people appears to me encouraging: the success of the library seems to be everything that you could have hoped for, & that, besides being the thing of most importance, will probably in the end lead to the success of the other part of your plan: it is very satisfactory too that the example has been so speedily followed in other quarters.
The trust is in exactly the same state as when I last wrote to you.2 We sent your letter to Mrs Ley, but with no result. Any one who would write such a Edition: current; Page: [511] letter as she wrote to my wife without any other provocation than being asked to act honorably in the matter, has evidently no wish to do so. You are no doubt the only person whose opinion would have weight enough to induce her to do anything she does not like, and we therefore have still some hope that the thing will be done. It will depend on whether or not she thinks the doing it necessary to your satisfaction. I think it most unjust that my wife shd be [hampered?] by feeling that her affairs are partly in the hands of persons in all ways so untrustworthy & so ill affected towards her.
We read every book we can get about the Australian colonies always with fresh interest. They seem to be most prosperous & rapidly progressive communities; & that this is not wholly owing to the gold, is proved by the state of your colony where there are no diggings. I certainly think the Wakefield system, unpopular as it now is in Australia, & badly as it has been administered in some of the colonies, has been one of the chief causes of their unexampled growth. Wakefield3 you know has been for several years in New Zealand. If he should ever visit the colony which he planned & founded, & the only one in which his system has been faithfully executed, you will find him well worth knowing: he is not a mere man of one idea, but has great general power of mind & energy of character. My name would be a sufficient introduction to him.
I suppose Macaulay's 3d & 4th volumes4 are as popular at Adelaide as in London. They are as you say, "pleasant reading but not exactly history." His object is to strike, & he attains it, but it is by scene painting—he aims at stronger effects than truth warrants, & so caricatures many of his personages as to leave it unaccountable how they can have done what they did. If Sarah duchess of Marlborough5 had been nothing but a thoroughly unprincipled shrew without talent or any one valuable or amiable quality (as he makes her) could she have been, by mere personal influence, for many years the most powerful person in England? This disregard of consistency & probability spoils the book even as a work of art. What a difference between it & Grote's Hist. of Greece,6 which is less brilliant, but far more interesting in its simple veracity & because, instead of striving to astonish he strives to comprehend & explain.Edition: current; Page: [512]
It is of no use writing to you about politics, as nowadays in the colonies you are as well up in all political news as we are.
Pray present my compliments to Mrs Hardy & believe me
I beg to acknowledge your letter of the 3d instant asking my objections to the address of the National Sunday League.2
The passage to which I principally object & which has hitherto made it impossible for me, consistently with my own convictions, to subscribe to the League, is the following: "They themselves would be the first to oppose the opening of any frivolous & vicious places of amusement."
That the Committee should limit their own endeavours to the opening of Institutions of a more or less scientific or literary character on Sundays may possibly be judicious; but it is not necessary for this purpose that they should join in stigmatizing the broader principle, the recognition of which I think should be their ultimate aim. With regard to "vicious places of amusement," if there be any such, I would not desire that they should be open on any day of the week. Any place unfit to be open on Sunday is unfit to be open at all. But with regard to "frivolous" amusements I no more think myself justified in limiting the people to intellectual than to religious occupations on that day, & the Committee cannot but feel that if their disclaimer does them any service with those whom it is intended to conciliate, it will be by being understood as a protest against permitting, for example, music, dancing, & the theatre, all of which I should wish to be as free on the seventh (or rather the first) as on any other day of the week.
I am also unable to give my adhesion to various expressions in the Declaration which partake of the nature of a compliance with cant; such as the "desecration" Edition: current; Page: [513] of the Sunday, & the preservation of "its original purpose of a day of devotion." The devotion which is not felt equally at all times does not deserve the name; and it is one thing to regard the observance of a holiday from ordinary work on one day in the week as a highly beneficial institution, & another to ascribe any sacredness to the day, a notion so forcibly repudiated in the quotations from great religious authorities on your fourth page & which I hold to be as mere a superstition as any of the analogous prejudices which existed in times antecedent to Christianity.
I beg to acknowledge your letter dated the 10th November, expressing a wish to include my portrait in a proposed publication of a series of Photographic Portraits, and in reply I beg to say that I have no desire to figure in a collection as I do not think that my personal appearance can be a matter of any interest to the general public.
J'aurai grand plaisir à discuter avec vous les questions dont vous parlez dans votre lettre et de profiter de vos observations. Justement je suis pour le moment très occupé à mon bureau. Si vous voulez bien venir diner, absolument Edition: current; Page: [514] sans façon, avec nous, vous ferez grand plaisir à ma femme et à moi. Comme nous seront tout seuls, nous pourrons causer d'économie politique et d'autres choses. Mardi nous sommes occupés, et mercredi il y a séance du conseil de la Compagnie, qui me fait ordinairement rester plus tard que les autres jours. Nous sommes libres jeudi ou vendredi, et je vous engage à venir me prendre à mon bureau à quatre heures.
I have to apologize for the delay in replying to your letter of the 7th Novr requesting my opinion on your plan for the regulation of the Currency.2 I have received so many similar requests on this & other economical or philosophical subjects that my whole time would scarcely suffice for complying with them. I think I might fairly claim to be excused from examining any more plans for an inconvertible currency,3 & if I had not seen, on the first inspection of your book, that it contained more knowledge of the subject & more ability than I have usually observed in such projects, I certainly should not have spared time to read it to the end.
But though I recognize the great distinction between you & the Birmingham school,4 or the writers who are now enlightening the world by their letters in the Morning Post,5 I do not think your scheme more defensible than theirs. To a writer who founds his practical suggestions on theoretic principles (as, in spite of your sarcasms on political economy, you do) it will probably be Edition: current; Page: [515] sufficient to say, that I dispute the basis of your theory, viz. the proposition that in a community which makes large use of credit, an increase of currency does not (unless by promoting speculation) influence prices. I grant that any increase of paper currency which can take place under a convertible system, usually passes off without having influenced any other prices than those of securities: but only because the revulsion comes before the increased supply of money has reached the markets for commodities. Monied capital is not for ever handed to & fro among money dealers; its ultimate destination is to be lent to producers, & when the increase reached them it would raise wages & money incomes, & must consequently raise the prices of all articles of consumption, in the same manner as you allow it would do if it were issued by Govt in payment of the public expenses. If you were right, the supplies of gold from California & Australia, to however many thousands of millions they might extend, could not raise general prices, except indeed during the continuance of any speculative mania to which they might give rise; a proposition in which you will find few to agree with you, & which I can scarcely think that you will yourself, on consideration, maintain.
If it were true that no increase of the quantity of money when taking place through the medium of bankers, could lower its value, the principal objection not only to your, but to every other system of inconvertible currency, would be annihilated. But, not admitting this, I need not further explain why I am not of opinion that your plan, which enjoins an issue of paper up to the whole amount of the national debt (or of some definite portion of that debt) on condition that the holder is willing to pay the current rate of interest for it, would offer any security against the kind of depreciation which you, as well as myself, regard as an evil. The provision which you make for a reflux (& which may possibly be, as you suppose it to be, new) depends for its efficacy entirely on the truth of your theory of the non effect of currency on prices; for if prices rise, the increased amount of currency being permanently wanted in the markets will be "absorbed in the circulation" & will not flow back.
I must add that I agree with most of your comments on the Act of 18446 & should think them calculated to be very useful if they were dissevered from so much that I conceive to be erroneous.
Veuillez m'écrire un mot par le porteur pour me dire quel jour vous viendrez. Si vous m'avez écrit, votre réponse n'est pas arrivée.
Si le messager ne vous trouve pas chez vous, je vous prie d'adresser votre réponse Blackheath Park, Kent.
Votre lettre du 12 mai ainsi que les articles et brochures2 que vous avez bien voulu m'envoyer ne me sont parvenus qu'en Septembre, à mon retour d'un voyage. Depuis lors, des occupations multipliées m'ont longtemps empêché, même de lire ces intéressants écrits et ensuite de vous en offrir mes remerciments. Je suis heureux de voir non seulement par vos écrits, mais aussi par le receuil où quelques uns entre ceux ont paru, que l'Italie, et surtout sa partie méridionale, qui au dernier siècle s'est placée si haut dans les études économiques et législatives, maintient encore sa position honorable dans cet ordre de recherches. Votre brochure sur la question de l'or me paraît conforme aux plus sains principes et je compte profiter de celle sur le métayage dans une nouvelle édition de mon livre.3 Quant à votre appréciation de ce livre, quoique trop flatteuse, elle est d'un grand prix, attendu que, parmi les notices auxquelles mon ouvrage a donné lieu, je n'en connais presque aucune qui porte autant l'empreinte d'une grande connaissance du sujet, et qui soit, scientifiquement parlant, aussi satisfaisante. Il me semble surtout que vos remarques Edition: current; Page: [517] sur la nature du rapport entre ce qu'on appelle une science abstraite, et la science correspondante d'application, ne sauraient être ni mieux pensées ni mieux exprimées. Quoique partageant, à tout égard, vos idées à ce sujet, je ne m'étais pas étendu là dessus dans mon ouvrage systématique, les ayant exposées dans un petit volume d'Essais,4 cité dans les "Principes" et dont je vous prie d'agréer un exemplaire que j'aurai l'honneur de vous envoyer par la première occasion.
Pour ce qui regarde les applications de l'éc. politique, je vois que, ainsi que la plupart des économistes, vous condamnez le socialisme d'une manière absolue. Vous avez vu par mon livre que je ne suis pas, à cet égard, de votre avis. Le socialisme selon la conception des socialistes les plus éclairés, me paraît inattaquable en principe, et mon dissentiment d'avec eux ne porte que sur la possibilité d'exécution dans l'état présent de la culture intellectuelle et morale de l'humanité. Je ne pense pas que la propriété privée, telle qu'on l'entend aujourd'hui, soit le dernier mot de la société, ni que la nature humaine soit incapable de travailler pour un but plus généreux que celui de l'intérêt individuel et exclusif. Je crois pourtant que les habitudes d'égoïsme sont tellement enracinées dans la grande majorité des peuples mêmes les plus civilisés, qu'elles ne céderont que lentement à des influences meilleures, et qu'aucun socialisme n'est aujourd'hui praticable comme fait général, mais seulement dans la forme d'associations d'ouvriers d'élite.5
J'ai bien tardé, mon cher Monsieur de Tocqueville, à répondre à votre lettre du 22 juin. Elle m'est parvenue la veille même de notre départ pour un voyage en Suisse, et je n'ai reçu qu'à mon retour l'exemplaire de votre ouvrage2 que vous avez bien voulu me destiner. Je l'ai ensuite lu sans aucun délai; mais il contient trop de choses pour qu'on puisse se les approprier Edition: current; Page: [518] toutes à la première lecture; et j'ai voulu attendre une seconde avant de vous faire part de mes impressions. Bien que des occupations multipliées aient ajourné trop longtemps cette seconde lecture, je me suis bien trouvé de l'avoir attendue puisque ce laps de temps me permet aujourd'hui d'exprimer avec délibération et sans aucun entraînement, l'opinion pleinement favorable qui, exprimée tout de suite, eût pu paraître hasardée. Il était certes difficile qu'après votre premier ouvrage,3 un autre quelconque ne parût pas relativement inférieur. Il est arrivé à peu de monde de frapper deux fois un aussi grand coup. Celui-ci pourtant se soutient parfaitement, même à côté de son prédécesseur. Envisagé seulement comme un chapitre d'histoire universelle, il me paraît un des plus beaux qu'on ait jamais fait; et si l'on peut regarder comme le but principal de votre vie philosophique, celui de caractériser la nature et les tendances de l'époque actuelle, pour mieux diriger ces tendances dans ce qu'elles ont de bon et les corriger autant que possible dans ce qu'elles ont de mauvais, je trouve que vous avez fait un pas important dans l'explication de cet état de choses actuel, en montrant ses racines dans le passé. Pour faire cela, comme vous l'avez fait, il a fallu une patience immense, et une capacité rare de combiner les faits et d'en présenter en peu de mots les traits les plus caractéristiques. Si ensuite cet ouvrage n'ajoute pas d'autres grandes vues générales à celles qui brillent dans votre Démocratie en Amérique, il fait peut-être mieux, il en reproduit les mêmes avec un grand surcroît de lumière, et avec de nouvelles applications. Quant à la critique, je n'en trouve, pour ainsi dire, aucune à faire. Il y a bien quelques différences générales, et même très importantes, entre votre manière de voir et la mienne, en tant que vous tenez beaucoup plus que moi au passé, surtout par son côté religieux. Mais si peu de traces de cette différence d'opinion se rencontrent dans cet ouvrage, que, même de mon point de vue, je n'y trouve presque rien à relever. J'aurais seulement insisté plus sur le bon côté de la philosophie du dixhuitième siècle, que vous ne laissez pas de reconnaître et de faire voir, tout en appuyant davantage sur ce qu'elle avait de défectueux. Je ne puis trop exprimer ma profonde sympathie pour le noble amour de la liberté qui règne dans votre ouvrage et qui en fait une protestation continue contre le triste régime que votre grande patrie, l'œil droit du monde, est réduite à subir dans ce moment.
Acceptez, avec mes remerciements, l'assurance de mes sentiments d'estime et d'admiration.
I should feel very little doubt of the success of Sir W. Hamilton's Lectures.2 His reputation for learning (with everybody) and for profundity (with one of the two great divisions of the philosophical world) stands higher than that of any other Englishman of this century; and even those who do not agree in his opinions (of whom I am one) regard his as the most powerful intellect on his own side of the question, and think it important to be well acquainted with all his speculations. Every student of logic and metaphysics will look forward with great interest to the publication as a whole, of a system only fragments of which have yet been printed. The sole obstacle to its pecuniary success is the abstruseness of some of the speculations, and in some degree, of the author's mode of exposition; though his stile, in a merely literary point of view, is good and clear. Against this may be set the almost certainty that the book will be much read and used at the Universities; and their demand for it is likely I think to last a long while. So that I should suppose it has as good a chance of selling several editions as any book on its kind of subject.
I shall be happy to revise the Pol. Ec. for another edition3 on the terms you propose. Will you be good enough to send me the sheets—and tell me about what time you think you shall require them for the printer? I am engaged about a new book4 (in one smaller volume) which I think I could finish in time for publication in May, and I am not so certain of being able to do so if I put it aside to revise the Pol. Economy. I am
I have received your letter dated the 22nd of December, informing me that I have been elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences:2 and I beg that you will express to the Academy my high sense of the honour conferred on me, which is enhanced by their having selected me as the fittest person to fill the place left vacant by Sir William Hamilton.3
The writings which the Academy has thought worthy of this distinction have been nowhere more intelligently read, or more conscientiously examined, than in America; judging from the reviews which I have seen, some of them by writers who differ widely from me in opinion. And all means of information lead me to believe that there is in America a public for such speculations, at least as thoughtful and more earnest than that of England. It is gratifying to me to have my name associated with so important a portion of that public as the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. I have the honour to be, Sir
Je prends la liberté de recommander à votre obligeance mon beau-fils M. Algernon Taylor, qui voyage en Italie pour se distraire d'une maladie chronique dont il souffre depuis longtemps, et qui compte voir en passant, avant la fin du printemps la belle ville que vous habitez.
Je me rappelle toujours avec plaisir la soirée si agréable que j'ai passée avec vous,2 et le projet dont vous me fîtes part alors de venir en Angleterre dans le courant de cette année. Si ce projet se réalise, comme je l'espère, ma femme et moi comptons que vous viendrez nous voir, et que nous reprendrons alors à trois notre bonne causerie.
My dearest love, if I do not write tonight you will not hear from me till Tuesday, so I write though it is but to say that I have got here comfortably. I had a pleasant hour & a half's ramble in that beautiful town, & the journey was very pleasant as long as there was light, though I could not succeed in getting a foot warmer till Newcastle. There was a stoppage of twenty minutes at Berwick which I availed myself of for a sort of dinner which disagreed with me. However I have done very well, and have just time to write this scrawl before it will be too late for the post. I enjoy excessively the feeling Edition: current; Page: [522] of those three days and shall enjoy the remembrance of them & be very happy till you come & a great deal happier afterwards, so be cheerful darling & keep loving me as you so sweetly do. Bless you my own only darling love.
I am at the George, alone in the coffee room by a flaming fire.
Darling of mine, I write directly to say that I have arrived here all right. It was not without some drawbacks. I could not get inside York Cathedral. Any day but Sunday it is open at nine, (& till five) but on Sunday not till ten. I was there at ¼ to 8, & went to the only verger that lives near, & his people told me that no one has the key but the verger whose turn it is, & that he was sure to be there about nine—but he had not arrived at ¼ to ten when I had to leave. I saw a very beautiful ruin (St Mary's Abbey) & a nice public garden & the outside of the Minster quite equalled my expectation. But the journey; never travel by a Sunday train when you can help it, for it stops at every station. It took longer getting to Peterborough than we took the whole way, add to which that it was an east wind & very cold, & they had no footwarmer ready, nor could I get one the whole journey. I therefore arrived cold & with a head ache, but (a sign it had done me no harm) I instantly scampered off to the cathedral, heard part of the service & saw the building which is one of the finest I know (in England). The inn was an old-fashioned red brick place with very moderate charges, & there were two really gentlemanly & well informed & decidedly liberal men in the coffee-room all the evening with whom I had a good deal of pleasant talk. This morning it was cold & foggy but became fine afterwards & there was a foot warmer. The cold made me go in the first class both days & I got here very prosperously, by the ten oclock train, (having to wait to get a rent in my great coat mended). So here is my history. I long to hear from my beloved one & to know both how she is & how she manages at that place. I have hardly known which way to turn since I arrived here between one & two, & therefore must content myself with this bare recital of particulars—but she will be glad to have it because it says that all is right. I hope she got mine from York. With the utmost love
My dearest love, what a pleasure it was to see her precious writing, but it was vexatious that she had such a bother the first day, how tired she must have been, no wonder her fingers were stiff. It is a good thing on every account that L[ily] is pleased & in good spirits. I am glad she will not be so busy after today & will be able to be with you, though it is provoking to think that you might so easily have been with her in some more agreeable place than that one seems to be.
I do not find my eyes any better for the trip—but I suppose they will come right by degrees, as they did seven years ago. I have seldom any defect of sight, but occasional aching, which however I think is nervous only. Sykes,2 though I did not see him till today, seemed almost surprised to see me so soon—I might have taken two days more, you see. He said they had had a "fright" because Mrs Sykes thought she saw your death in the papers, it was the wife of a Mr Mills of the India House.3 I found two letters from Haji which I send in another cover together with a bill of Bagnall. Lapworth's which has also come I need not send. It comes to £57. 6. not more I should think than we expected. It was the strangest feeling yesterday & this morning to be there & at the same time fresh from all those places. I have hardly anything running in my mind's eye but innumerable large railway stations. On Saturday night at York I slept little & dreamt much—among the rest a long dream of some speculation on animal nature, ending with my either reading or writing, just before I awoke, this Richterish4 sentence: "With what prospect then, until a cow is fed on broth, we can expect the truth, the whole truth & nothing but the truth to be unfolded concerning this part of nature, I leave to" &c &c. I had a still droller dream the same night. I was seated at a table like a table d'hôte, with a woman at my left hand & a young man opposite—the young man said, quoting somebody for the saying, "there are two excellent & rare things to find in a woman, a sincere friend & a sincere Magdalen." I answered "the best would be to find both in one"—on which the woman said "no, that would be too vain"—whereupon I Edition: current; Page: [524] broke out "do you suppose when one speaks of what is good in itself, one must be thinking of one's own paltry self interest? no, I spoke of what is abstractedly good & admirable." How queer to dream stupid mock mots, & of a kind totally unlike one's own ways or character. According to the usual oddity of dreams—when the man made the quotation I recognised it & thought he had quoted it wrong & the right words were "an innocent magdalen" not perceiving the contradiction. I wonder if reading that Frenchman's book5 suggested the dream. These are ridiculous things to put in a letter, but perhaps they may amuse my darling. I intend to come here early & go away late during her absence in order more quickly to get through my heap of work. I should have liked to go to Paddington to vote against the directors of the G. Western,6 but I could not. The opponents cannot expect to succeed when they do not ask for proxies. The directors asked me for one which I refused. I think them more & more wrong the more I look into the management, & they must be made to give way sooner or later. I wrote to my darling from York & again yesterday. I sent the paper yesterday & shall send today's as those of the three days of absence are enough at home for the present. The Govt is bringing in a bill to make the savings banks a Govt responsibility.7 Adieu darling. your
I do, dear, wonder very much that she should have urged you to come to such a place as it seems to be, & herself so occupied that she could not be with you.2 It has turned out better than there was reason to expect in her Edition: current; Page: [525] having a respite from all that bustle & occupation, & being able to be more with you. She is very fortunate in having come to this man—she will evidently have the best chances with him that the case admits of—so it is well for her, & everything shews more & more that it is best for us also. I hope my precious that I shall hear tomorrow that a lodging has been found fit for you to be in & that she being more with you it is more endurable. I will not forget the Bidd letter3 darling. That will be for Friday—& tomorrow is the voting for Martin which is at Lewisham.4 I have done exactly what she says darling about dinner, that is I have only spoken to Henry & to Mary. The only difficulty I shall have in ordering relates to the servant's dinners, as I do not know the quantities to order: but I must do the best I can. I get on quickly with the Pol Econ.5 as there is but little to add or alter. Adieu my darling
My most precious one, I do not get on well with the idea of your time being passed in a dirty gloomy inn in that detestable place—& so much of it, as it seems, still alone. Surely that decousu irregular character of the planche life is not inseparable from it, but pretty nearly so in practice I suppose as these comparatively regular people have so much of it. I detest equally your returning all that way alone—but for that there does not seem, as things now look, any alternative.
I pass the evening always at the Pol. Economy, with now & then a little playing to rest my eyes & mind. There will be no great quantity to alter, but now & then a little thing is of importance. One page I keep for consideration when I can shew it to you. It is about the qualities of English workpeople & Edition: current; Page: [526] of the English generally.2 It is not at all as I would write it now, but I do not, in reality, know how to write it.
I gave my vote at Lewisham this morning about nine, & found Martin himself there.3 He reckons himself sure of success, on the number of positive promises, after taking off the usual percentage (10 per cent) for failures. I will not forget to post that letter tomorrow. On Saty I shall take back the books to Rolandi4 & get others. Can I do any other useful thing?
It was less of a shock the first moment than I should have thought it would have been—no doubt because the same letter said you were better & because the sight of your beloved handwriting gave me confidence—but I have been growing more anxious every hour since. Thank Heaven however we know by experience that this is not necessarily dangerous—though a warning of the danger there always is. It must have been much less bad than the former time, or you could not have written immediately. But it would be very imprudent to attempt travelling for I do not know how many days, & then it can only be by very short journeys. L[ily]'s being ill at the same time is an additional misfortune. But why should I not come. I am ready to come any day & stay any time—& I do not see that your being there is inaverrable—you are really on a visit, & it is nobody's concern to whom. You will judge best of everthing & either you or L. will let me know—but all my wish is to be with you & to be doing my little little to help. The blessing & comfort it was & is to me to have been with you on that former occasion no words will ever express.
I will do about the letters as you say & will send today's paper as usual—I shall hear again tomorrow—
Do not torment herself dearest dearest love about this having happened when & how it has. There is nothing, in comparison, worth thinking of, except to do the best that can be done now & especially not to be too impatient to come home, at the great risk it would be to travel either too soon or by too long journeys. It seems to me quite impossible that you should come in a Saturday & Sunday, or even with a Friday superadded—& therefore quite necessary that I should come for longer, though that will make it necessary to say something to Sykes. You will judge best what I had better say, & will tell me when my coming will be of most service. One time of the week or another will be indifferent if I ask for leave—But it is quite impossible you should do these long journies which we did in going. I should think you ought not to take less than four days, if you set out anything like as soon as you hope to do—& in that case I shall require a week. Have you seen any medical man?
Since L[ily] returns with you at any rate, I shall not send any more newspapers to G[lasgow] but shall keep them here, & send them if you say so, or if there is any change of plan.
There are many things I wished to say, but I can write about nothing but the one subject.
I expect to be with you before this note & therefore only write it in case of any (impossible) stoppage on the way. I shall go by tonight's mail & consequently arrive in Edinburgh a little after eleven. adieu
Neither have I made myself conversant with the details.2 What disgusted me was the stupidity (if it was no worse) of supposing that people here could judge of the effect that would be produced on the minds of barbarians who put to death several thousands per year by the more or less of reparation demanded where some was evidently due; the ridiculous appeals to humanity and Christianity in favour of ruffians, & to international law in favour of people who recognize no laws of war at all (witness the poisonings & stabbings in the back) & the attempt to make out Bowring a "flagitious" liar because he said the obvious truth that if the Chinese thought they were insulting a vessel entitled to our protection, it was immaterial whether it had really ceased to be entitled or not.
I think you cannot make too much of the poisonings & of Yeh's cutting off heads. Coulson3 told me at the club (I do not know if you heard it) that a friend of his told him that his brother (or some near relation) at Canton had himself seen 3000 put to death in one day—they were told off in 30 parties of 100 each. If you like to come & talk over the points, pray do. I am too busy to write more, having all Thornton's work to do in addition to my own.
I am very much obliged for the trouble you are taking to procure a copy of the reprint,2 and for your kind offer of information on the present state of Cooperation in England. The information of that kind which would be of most use for my present purpose (a new edition of the Pol. Economy)3 would be some approximate estimate of the number of establishments now in operation, distinguishing those which are for production from those which are only stores—and a general notion of whether they are increasing in number and prosperity, or falling off. I am Dear Sir
I have just heard from my friend Mr Alexander Bain that he is a candidate for the Examinership in Logic and Mental Philosophy,2 and that he thinks an expression of my opinion on his qualifications for the post may be of service to him. I think him in all probability the fittest person for it in the three kingdoms, having on the whole a greater knowledge of the entire subject than any other person I could mention and having also been a very successful teacher of it for some years at an University (Marischal College Aberdeen)3 How much mental philosophy owes to him as an original, profound, and at Edition: current; Page: [530] the same time sober and judicious thinker, may be seen in his principal work "The Senses and the Intellect",4 in my opinion the best book yet written on the Philosophy of Mind. I cannot imagine that any other person of this generation has made good equally strong claims to such a post as he applies for.
I have got here quite comfortably, & am on the point of setting out for Bond St. &c. It was worth much more than the extra 2/3 to hear her say in such a nice strong voice that she was well.
The three days were very pleasant, and in looking back, seem very long. I can hardly fancy it is so short a time since I was here last. That is always the case in pleasant absences.
I always now forget something—I either left my India House clothes brush behind this morning, or it has dropped out of my pocket.
Fare well & be well my own love for the sake of your
I am extremely sorry to hear such bad news of the Central Cooperative Agency.2 But if the supporters of cooperative establishments will not have Edition: current; Page: [531] common sense and reasonable confidence, they never can succeed. The vulgar seem to reserve all their distrust for those who desire to befriend them.
You may perhaps like to see the inclosed,3 containing information which reached me too late to be inserted in the text of my new edition.4 Much of it is very encouraging.
I will send another copy to Mr Shorter5 in returning the book he was kind enough to send me.
If you are disengaged next Wednesday (17th) we should be very glad if you would come and take a quiet dinner with us at half past six—I am
J'ai tardé trop longtemps, mon cher Monsieur Villari, à répondre à votre lettre du 15 avril. Aujourd'hui j'ai encore des remerciements à vous faire de l'aimable accueil que vous avez donné à mon beau-fils Algernon Taylor,2 et du service que vous lui avez rendu en lui donnant une lettre de recommandation Edition: current; Page: [532] à Monsieur votre père. Si, comme je le désire, votre projet de visite en Angleterre se réalise,3 ma femme et moi pourrons vous témoigner personnellement notre reconnaissance, et nous serions charmés d'avoir avec vous des causeries pareilles à celle qui a rempli si agréablement pour moi cette longue soirée à Florence.4 Nous pourrons alors vous donner plus pleinement l'explication de la conduite louche que le gouvernement anglais a tenue envers l'Italie,5 et qui vous a justement indigné, mais qui est à mes yeux très conforme à la nature de ce gouvernement. En général les étrangers, même les plus éclairés, prêtent au gouvernement anglais une profondeur de politique et une suite dans les idées et dans les projets qui ne lui appartiennent nullement. Je ne crois pas que Palmerston ni aucun ministre anglais ait songé, ni à soulever les patriotes Italiens ni encore moins à les trahir. Sauf l'infâme conduite de Sir James Graham dans l'affaire des infortunés Bandiera, dont encore probablement lui-même n'a pas prévu le résultat tragique,6 je ne pense pas qu'aucun homme d'état anglais ait commis aucun crime d'intention contre la liberté Italienne. Mais le gouvernement anglais, comme tous les gouvernements, craint les révolutions et les soulèvements, et lors même qu'il désapprouve réellement les oppresseurs des peuples, il ne veut ni n'ose faire pour les opprimés autre chose que de provoquer bien timidement quelques concessions très graduelles de la part de leurs tyrans. Je crois que Palmerston a réellement espéré qu'en mettant pour ainsi dire le roi de Naples moralement au ban de l'Europe, il le forcerait à changer un peu de conduite.7 Il ne connaissait pas son homme: mais, règle générale, les hommes d'état anglais ne connaissent pas le monde ni la vie. Même nos plus grands roués Edition: current; Page: [533] politiques sont parfois d'une innocence qu'un étranger a beaucoup de peine à comprendre et à croire. Quant à la garantie donnée au statu quo en Italie,8 n'en croyez rien. Nos ministres n'ont fait que ce qu'ils ont avoué. Malheureusement ils avaient besoin de l'Autriche contre la Russie. C'était le plus grand mal de la situation. Alors, afin que l'Autriche fût libre de les aider, les gouvernements de France et d'Angleterre lui ont dit "Si vous envoyez votre armée en Crimée, nous ne permettons pas que pendant ce temps seulement on vous attaque par derrière." Heureusement l'Autriche n'y a pas mordu, et on n'a pas donné suite à ce pacte, qui en tout cas eût cessé avec la guerre. Mais tout en atténuant la culpabilité de notre gouvernement envers la cause de l'Italie, je ne puis que dire avec douleur: Ne batissez jamais d'espoir sur ce governement. Il vous donnera des mots et des sentiments, jamais des actes. Je crois que son appui moral vaut quelque chose, momentanément au moins, pour la Sardaigne.9 Mais c'était là justement ce qu'il fallait à l'opinion aristocratique d'ici—une révolution royale. Le gouvernement anglais n'aidera jamais un peuple à renverser son gouvernement, quelque odieux qu'il puisse être, même à ses propres yeux. Vous avez bien vu qu'il ne s'est pas opposé à l'intervention française à Rome,10 à l'intervention russe en Hongrie.11 Même en temps de guerre contre la Russie, il n'a pas voulu soulever la Pologne.12 Cela ne dit-il pas tout?
J'ai appris avec beaucoup d'intérêt ce que vous m'écrivez sur les oeuvres inédites de Machiavelli et Guicciardini.13 Des publications aussi importantes Edition: current; Page: [534] sous le rapport historique ne sauraient manquer de faire sensation en Europe. Je conviens avec vous qu'une revue qui a la prétention de rendre compte de tout, ne devrait pas negliger le mouvement intellectuel de l'Italie. Mais je n'écris pas dans le Westminster Review, et n'y ai pas d'influence. Quand j'écrivais, il y a vingt ans, j'y ai fait imprimer quelques bons articles de Mazzini sur les auteurs Italiens.14 Je ne sais pas qui a pu vous dire que j'ai écrit quelque chose sur le Socialisme. Je n'ai écrit là dessus que ce qui a paru dans mes Principes d'Écon. Politique.15 J'ai fait dernièrement un petit livre qui paraîtra l'hiver prochain et dont je me ferai un plaisir de vous offrir un exemplaire, si toutefois son titre "De la Liberté" comporte son entrée en Toscane.16 Il ne s'agit pas cependant de liberté politique dans ce livre, autant que de liberté sociale, morale, et religieuse.
Vous avez vu par les elections de Paris qu'il y a encore de la vie en France.17 C'est ce qui est arrivé de mieux en Europe, à mon avis, depuis 1851.
Vous me feriez grand plaisir en m'écrivant quelquefois. Notre entrevue d'il y a deux ans m'a donné un souvenir si agréable, que je regretterais beaucoup de laisser tomber ce commencement de relation entre nous.
Des occupations multipliées m'ont empêché jusqu'ici de répondre, autrement que par l'envoi réciproque de ma nouvelle édition,2 au don que vous Edition: current; Page: [535] avez bien voulu me faire de votre important Traité d'Economie Politique.3 Je ne connais pas d'autre écrivain français qui me paraisse avoir aussi bien approfondi les lois abstraites de l'Economie Politique, et votre livre est d'autant plus précieux qu'il se recommande par la conformité de principes à ceux qui professent en France des opinions démocratiques avancées, opinions que je partage à beaucoup d'égards, mais qui, il faut l'avouer, se sont rarement trouvées jusqu'ici réunis comme chez vous, à des opinions économiques éclairées. Vous avez puisé si heureusement dans ce qui offrent de meilleur les économistes anglais, que je suis tout surpris d'apprendre que vous ne les lisez que dans les traductions. Je me sens très honoré en retrouvant tant de fois chez vous mes propres opinions, et je crois qu'en économie politique nous sommes rarement en désaccord sérieux. Notre plus grande divergence porte peut-être sur la liberté du taux de l'intérêt; encore ne suis-je pas éloigné de penser que cette liberté puisse admettre des modifications là où comme dans les républiques anciennes, et même en France, la classe de débiteurs se compose surtout de ceux qui travaillent la terre de leurs mains.
Vous avez probablement deviné que l'impression de ma nouvelle édition se trouvait trop avancée pour que j'eusse pu la faire profiter de votre ouvrage autrement qu'en y ajoutant, en forme d'appendice, les renseignements importants que vous avez donnés sur l'état actuel des associations ouvrières.4
Je suis, Monsieur, avec les sentiments les plus respectueux
I have been very fortunate in having had a most beautiful day for Helvellyn. I ascended it from Patterdale having gone there by an early coach from here, & I returned here in the same way in the evening, walking up the pass so you see I was not tired. The view though there were a few Edition: current; Page: [536] clouds was splendid. It was a disappointment as to plants, as on those sunny heights everything was still more gone by than in the valleys—of all the rare plants which grow there I could only distinguish two, and those were only in leaf. But the day before I was unexpectedly successful in plants between Windermere & this place. I made a circuit & saw Mr Crosfield's cottages2 which I will describe to you when I have the happiness of being with you again; they are not what we want; besides other objections they are in a real village or rather hamlet. I have planned a very nice round for today, and shall go to Broughton tomorrow down the Duddon, and to Lancaster, & I hope to Settle on Tuesday. I talked yesterday with people from Fleetwood & others from Blackpool & I am afraid they are but ugly places—I so hope to hear that you have not inflicted purgatory on yourself to give me this walk. I feel however that it will do me great good. Today the sky is gloomy—but not very threatening. Yesterday everything looked its very best. I shall write again as soon as I receive yours. Adieu my own wife from your
I got her two darling letters both together this morning—the train I came by to Lancaster yesterday being an hour behind time I was too late for the train I ought to have come here by, and I arrived here too late for letters. So you see my experience of these northern trains is like yours, & so is my observation of the dirty, mean, horrid looking people who go by them & frequent the stations. I am not at all surprised my own dearest one that neither of the two places turned out fit to stay at, and I shall be quite happy in rejoining her at Leamington instead of that Manchester: it is much pleasanter thinking of her in a place we know & which looks & feels clean & civilized, unlike anything in Lancashire I should think. Edition: current; Page: [537] I have been lucky in weather & it greatly increased the pleasure that I knew what pleasure it would give my darling. On Sunday I was about all day & in the evening had from the mountains overlooking Grasmere on the east, the most glorious mountain view I have yet had—four fine ranges of dark mountain one behind another with the sun behind all. On Monday morning there was a Scotch mist but I made out my walk over Wrynose & down the Duddon to Broughton & though I could not see much of the mountains in Little Langdale it was still very fine & I found a rare fern & a rare mint, peppermint to wit, which I had never found before. The weather cleared afterwards & I saw the Duddon very well & to increase the luck, the valley proved to be much finer descending than it would have been ascending. The absence of a lake made more space for other varieties & there is about half way a sort of Vallée de Cluses, of a type not met with elsewhere in the lake district. Yesterday I saw Furness Abbey which in its way was fine too. But the weather is now both couvert & hazy though not looking like rainy. This place is a prettier country town than any in the lakes & the country about looks very pretty though the mountains have not the fine forms & beautiful arrangement of the Lakes. Please darling continue to write here, as I find it is the best centre for all I want to see—within a day's walk of everything. I have time to explore Craven between this & Sunday & I shall certainly go to Manchester on Monday & to darling on Tuesday. I saw the last Times yesterday at Lancaster. The Indian news seems to me more bad than good, but not, I think, of any bad omen.2 I saw in a Liverpool paper an announcement from a French paper of the death of Comte.3 It seems as if there would be no thinkers left in the world. I shall know by her answer to this how long a letter takes—I should think it will not be safe for her to write after Saturday as I suppose letters northward obey the London post & therefore are not sent on Sunday. I shall enquire at the post office here on Monday before leaving.
I fancy it much pleasanter for her at Leamington & even prettier than that Lancashire coast, & now adieu from her own
I wrote to Fleetwood on Sunday4—I hope they sent it on.
I have spent the last two days in walking about this neighbourhood, & have seen the famous Malham Cove & Gordale Scar. It is much prettier country than I expected, & bears the same relation to the Lakes that the Jura does to the Alps, being greener, & with the green not of fern but of rich & abundant turf, but the mountains not of the fine shape of those of the Lakes, but round, or with long inclining ridges & immense bases, now & then however a peaked top jutting out, as it does in the Jura not much higher than the rest. If it had but the fir woods (but what an if that is) it would want little of being equal to the Jura; & Gordale Scar is a minor Creux du Vent. The mountains as in the Jura continually break into wall-like cliffs—this is characteristic of limestone to which also these mountains & those of the Jura owe their fine turf & their comparative absence of bog & likewise their abundance of plants—I have done very well botanically considering the lateness of the season. The weather has remained fine, the south west wind spending itself in bringing something between clouds & haze which entirely shrouded the higher mountains till towards evening; but today it is brighter, the wind having changed to north. It shews how cheap the country must be to live in that at the inn at the station where I staid the night I arrived (as there were no means of getting my portmanteau a mile & a half to the town) I had tea with bread, breakfast with eggs & cold meat, & a bed, for all which including attendance the charge was two shillings & two pence. I shall probably see Ingleborough & its caves tomorrow. There are no more letters yet dear at the post office. When she writes will she tell me by what railway she got to Leamington: is there a branch direct from Birmingham, & how do the trains suit? but only write what you happen to know, & I will find out the rest for myself. It is a real pleasure thinking of her at a pleasant place & one I know & have seen with her. I am glad too that she will have seen those pictures.2 I shall see them either on Monday afternoon or Tuesday morning & will certainly be with my beloved one on Tuesday evening. I do not generally find that Art & Nature mix well together in my case—but Furness Abbey while it exemplified this, shewed that I can get into the Art state quickly & I will if Manchester ugliness will let me. Adieu darling—your own
I have just got your darling letter you angel which would make me set off directly to rejoin you if I did not know that you would much rather I did not on account of the good this excursion does me. I too was feeling very sad all yesterday but for an opposite reason (partly) to yours, namely perfect beauty. It was the first splendid day since I have been here, & I was all day wandering over the edge of the hills having such a sun & sky as made the views both near & distant perfectly beautiful & I think that always makes one melancholy, at least when one is alone, which to me means not with you. I am now going to climb Ingleborough & see the caves, at least the principal of them, for there are multitudes all about here. I fancied Leamington would be pleasant because it has a civilized air, though very ugly—the frequented parts of the N. of E. are generally hideous as to the human part of them, but this Settle is a nice quiet, really pretty, very little country place, not tourified, the people of the place are civil & the few strangers one sees in the coffee room are really gentlemanly. I shall enquire at the post office Manchester my own love. I will certainly look particularly at the pictures my darling liked. Adieu till Tuesday evening & blessing from her own
I wrote yesterday to Post Off. Leamington. Excuse the Ambleside envelopes.
I have nearly finished an Essay on "Liberty"2 which I hope to publish next winter. As the Liberty it treats of is moral and intellectual rather than political, it is not so much needed in Germany as it is here.
The little volume2 which you did me the honor to send me, arrived safely, but not until several months after the date of your letter announcing its despatch. I read it as soon as I received it, which was about a fortnight ago, & I not only agree with you throughout on the main question (of Liberty & Necessity) but also have to thank you for a very useful exposition & illustration, in small compass, of the Law of Association as applied to the analysis of the principal mental phenomena. I could mention points on which I differ from you; but on several of these the difference is possibly more verbal than real. For instance, when you say on page 130 that truth is to every man what it appears to him to be, I cannot suppose you to mean that if I think poison to be wholesome food, it really is so to me, but only that I cannot help viewing as truth what presents itself to my perceptions or judgment as such. So when you say that "sin and crime exist of necessity," I do not understand you to mean that it is necessary they should always exist; but only that when they exist, they are the necessary consequences of the causes which have produced them. I do not think you successful in the faint attempt you make to reconcile your doctrine with the received notions of Divine perfection; but your theory is quite as consistent with those notions as the opposite theory. In truth nothing can reconcile the order of nature as we know it with perfect wisdom & goodness, combined with infinite power. To make any consistent scheme, at least one of the three must be given up.
There is something doing in this country also for the "Ass[ociatio]n Philosophy."3 Mr. Bain has published under the name of "The Senses and the Intellect,"4 the first part of a treatise on the mind, which I think you would be much pleased with. He has not yet got to your special subject, but he will soon arrive at it. Mr. Herbert Spencer's "Principles of Psychology,"5 though not so sound as a whole, contains many searching analyses of complex mental phenomena, and happy applications of the principle of association. He has unfortunately put at the head of it a dissertation under the title of the "Universal Postulate,"6 which seems to me not only erroneous, but quite inconsistent with the philosophy of the work it is prefixed to.Edition: current; Page: [541]
I hope that like myself you have been successful in warding off your chest complaint, and that your eyesight, to which your preface alludes, is at least not getting worse.
It is now some weeks since I received your letter but I have not until now had time to answer your question.
In principle I am quite in favour of considering all land as the property of the State, and its rent as a fund for defraying the public expenses. But there are two objections to the application of this maxim to a country in the circumstances of Australia. One of these you have mentioned, viz. that a large immigration is most effectually attracted by granting the land in absolute property, at a price to be only once paid. I agree with you that a time comes when a colony is so far advanced in population & importance that immigration ceases to be the first object so far as the colony itself is concerned, & that when this time comes, the advantage of the colony should take precedence over the interest which the mother country may have in getting rid of a surplus population. But I doubt if that time has yet come in the case of Australia. A great temporary immigration has been brought about by the gold discoveries,2 but I should think that for retaining the immigrants, the colony depends very much on the facilities allowed of acquiring land; & Englishmen do not like to settle where they cannot get land in fee. In India we have the system you desire, but that is one great reason why few English settle there; & the English who do go, & the greater number who would like to go, are always clamouring to have the system changed to one of grants in fee: & so I should think would a large part of the resident population of Australia who have not yet got land.
There is a second objection which weighs with me as much as the first; the very great difficulty of levying a land tax, or any annual payment, from settlers scattered widely apart over a great wilderness. It is difficult enough, Edition: current; Page: [542] as the Americans find, to prevent squatting even when only one payment is demanded, as a condition preliminary to occupancy. But if a payment has to be made annually I cannot but think that to collect & enforce it, if practicable at all, would require so costly an establishment as would absorb the chief part of the receipts, & be quite unsuitable to the finances of a country like Australia. In India the revenue establishments are one of the heaviest items of the public expenditure, although India in general is thickly peopled. I believe that attempts have been made formerly to collect taxes from outlying lands in the older Australian colonies but that their failure was so complete that they were abandoned.
The newly introduced parliamentary government of the provinces3 seems to have some difficulty in getting into regular play, but this will be got over in time. We are glad to hear your favorable account of your own prospects.4 My wife sends very kind remembrance to you which is joined by Haji & his sister—the former I think is very unlikely to become either a Catholic or a monk, although he passed some months in visiting convents in Italy, among his various peregrinations in search of relief for his constant bad health. I am yrs truly
I had already read the book with great interest. As is the case with everything of yours that I have read, it seemed to me full of true thought aptly expressed and, though not resolving many questions, a valuable contribution to the floating elements out of which the future moral and intellectual synthesis will have to shape itself. I have been much pleased, both on your account and that of the book itself, at the decided success it has met with.
I am unable to put my name to the Memorial2 which I have just received from you, because I am, to say the least, very doubtful as to the desirableness of the measure proposed in it.
I quite agree in the opinion that educated persons should count in a greater ratio than that of their mere numbers in the constituency of the country. But I have not seen any method proposed by which persons of educated minds can be sifted from the rest of the community. All that could well be done is to give votes to a limited number of what are called liberal professions, on the presumption (often a very false one) that every member of these professions must be an educated person. But nearly all the recognized professions have as such, interests & partialities opposed to the public good, & the members of Parliament whom they would elect if organized apart would, I apprehend, be much more likely to represent their sentiments & objects as professional, than as educated men.
The only provisions for increasing the influence of the more educated class of voters, to which I see my way, are 1st, an educational test for all electors, such as would exclude the wholly uneducated. The amount of expurgation of even the present constituencies, which this would effect, would be found I believe much greater than is supposed. 2dy, I regard it as an indispensable part of a just representative constitution, that minorities be not swamped but that every considerable minority be represented in a fair proportion to its numbers.3 This would be secured by the simple plan proposed some years ago by Mr. Marshall, of allowing a voter if he pleases to give all his votes to the same candidate.4 Other modes of effecting the same object have been Edition: current; Page: [544] proposed, but they would necessarily be unpopular as they propose to operate by abridging the rights of the individual voter, while the plan in question would extend them, & it would besides, allow weight to degree of preference as well as to number, a distinction highly favorable to the more eminent candidate.
I may add that I should be glad to see a representation given to the graduates of the Univ. of London,5 such as is already possessed by Oxford, Cambridge, & Dublin.
Je n'ai aucune raison pour ne pas vouloir être cité comme l'auteur de la brochure sur la Révolution de Février.2 Au contraire je me réjouirais d'associer mon nom à cette protestation en faveur de principes qui sont les miens, et d'hommes que je respecte profondément.
Ma femme me charge de vous offrir l'expression de sa sympathie dans votre travail justificatif.3
I am very much obliged to you for sending me the paper which you read at the Birmingham meeting.2 I only knew enough of the Leeds experiment to be aware that it had been very successful; & of the Rochdale Edition: current; Page: [546] one, only a little more.3 I now know the particulars of the success, & some of the details of the plan, & I hope as occasions arise to make my knowledge useful. The only doubt which could reasonably be entertained about the success of cooperation in this country, was grounded on the low moral & intellectual condition of the masses. Your success & that of the Rochdale Association proves that there are at least two bodies of workpeople to be found who are sufficiently free from shortsighted selfishness—for that is really all that is required—to be capable of succeeding in such an enterprise, and the results, economically considered, as exhibited in your paper, are so advantageous that they can hardly fail to call forth imitators. It is now shewn that with honest & intelligent management, cooperative establishments can undersell individual dealers. But to do this, the management must be honest & intelligent. If the experience of cooperation teaches the working classes the value of honesty & intelligence to themselves, it will work as great a moral revolution in society as it will, in that case, a physical. But it will never do the last without the first, and that you see this so clearly, gives me much confidence in the value of your influence, & hopes of the permanency of your success. I am yrs very truly
John Holmes Esq
I return your proofs2 with a few pencil marks in the margin.
In the earlier facts as stated by you there are some about which I feel doubtful. I have no doubt you have always good authority for them, but they Edition: current; Page: [547] are sometimes apparently deficient in explanations which would give them a somewhat different colour from that which they now bear. I have marked all such passages for your judgment. But generally speaking your statements are strictly accurate.
I send you as requested a note of the points which have occurred to me as requiring correction in your book. They are mostly very trifling, but some few are important.
I have received your note of Feb. 15. I do not know why you write to me after so long an interval if you cannot shew more good sense or good feeling than are shewn in this note. There is besides, a total want of modesty in supposing that I am likely to receive instruction from you on the subject of my strongest convictions2—which also were those of your father. There is certainly nothing in your note to make me desire that there should be any more communication between us than there has been for many years past.
It gave me much pleasure to see your handwriting after so many years interval.2 I did not answer your first note when I received it, because I hoped in answering it to have said that I had been able to do something for Dr Laurenza.3 I have been disappointed of this, through his not obtaining a certificate from Dr Scott,4 the E.I.C's examining physician, without which no one is appointed to the medical charge of troops. I do not understand clearly from Dr L. what are Dr Scott's objections. They are very probably quite unreasonable; but I have no power of overruling them, & unfortunately I have no interest or influence that can be useful to Dr L. in any other quarter though I shall lose no opportunity if any should chance to offer, as I regret much my inability to be of service to an Italian patriot & a friend of yours.
When I began writing to you I thought that this country was meanly allowing itself to be made an appendage to Louis Bonaparte's police for the purpose of hunting down all foreigners (& indeed English too) who have virtue enough to be his avowed enemies.5 But it appears we are to be spared this ignominy; & such is the state of the world ten years after 1848 that even this must be felt as a great victory.
I sympathize too strongly both with your taste for solitude & with the devotion of your time & activity to the great object of your life, to intrude on you with visits or invitations. We, like you, feel that those who would either make their lives useful to noble ends, or maintain any elevation of character within themselves, must in these days have little to do with what is called society. But if it can be any pleasure to you to exchange ideas with people who have many thoughts & feelings in common with you, my wife & I reckon you among the few persons to whom we can sincerely say that they may feel sure of being welcome.
The inclosed Memorandum2 supplies answers to some of the grossest misstatements in Ashworth's paper.3
If you look through the last 20 pages of Dr Royle's pamphlet4 which I send, you will learn more to your present purpose than I can tell you.
Vos deux lettres, dont la dernière porte la date du 10 janvier, méritaient bien une réponse plus prompte. Je vous prie de ne pas voir dans le retard que j'y ai mis, une preuve d'indifférence aux sentiments d'amitié que vous voulez bien me témoigner. Ce retard vient de la multiplicité de mes occupations, et surtout de la lutte que la Compagnie des Indes, dont je suis un des employés, soutient maintenant pour son existence.2 Le gouvernement Anglais Edition: current; Page: [550] se propose d'arracher à la Compagnie la part qu'elle conserve encore dans l'administration de l'Inde. L'ignorance du public ne permet pas d'espoir que la Compagnie puisse s'en tirer; mais il importe qu'elle succombe honorablement, et que sa cause soit plaidée d'une manière digne d'un gouvernement qui a été, j'ose le dire, unique dans le monde par la pureté de ses intentions et par la bienfaisance de ses actes. Cette tâche étant devolue surtout à moi, elle a dû être depuis quelque temps ma principale occupation.
Cependant depuis l'ouverture du parlement, une question d'un intérêt encore plus vif est venue compliquer la situation. Je veux parler de la misérable tentative du ministère Palmerston de traîner la nation anglaise dans la boue, en faisant d'elle une succursale de la police française.3 Nous sommes sauvés pour le moment de cet avilissement, par la chute du ministère, qui, tout puissant en apparence un mois auparavant, a été chassé du pouvoir par la combinaison de ses ennemis naturels avec ceux qui lui ont retiré leur appui à cause de son indigne soumission à des exigences déshonorables au pays. Cet événement m'a comblé de joie; cependant je ne suis pas encore rassuré: les successeurs4 de Lord Palmerston ne valent pas mieux que lui, et il n'est rien moins que certain qu'ils ne seront pas, au fond, tout aussi obséquieux. S'ils ne font pas une nouvelle loi, ce qui est encore douteux, ils feront certainement tout le mal possible au moyen des lois existantes, et celles-là sont déjà bien assez odieuses: heureusement il nous reste le jury, et la presse indépendante exerce sur lui une certaine influence. Vous voyez par la part qu'il a prise dans cette affaire que Lord John Russell a du bon,5 quoique vous l'ayez parfaitement bien jugé être un homme très médiocre. Tel qu'il est, il vaut encore mieux que la plupart de nos soi-disant hommes d'état, qui, s'ils savent quelque chose, ne savent que les traditions de la politique anglaise, soit conservatrice, soit libérale mais qui sont d'une ignorance profonde sur la politique générale, et sur les idées et l'histoire des autres pays.
J'espérais vous offrir depuis longtemps mon petit livre sur la liberté, mais plusieurs raisons m'ont décidé à ne pas le faire imprimer cet hiver.6 Au reste, il n'a guère de valeur que pour l'Angleterre. Il traite de la liberté morale et intellectuelle, en quoi les nations du Continent sont autant au dessus de l'Angleterre qu'elles lui sont inférieures quant à la liberté politique.
Ma femme me charge de vous faire ses compliments. Elle s'intéresse autant que moi à la cause de l'Italie et aux patriotes et philosophes Italiens. Nous espérons bien vous voir avant peu, soit ici, soit peutêtre à Florence. Algernon Taylor se rappelle à votre souvenir. Sa santé est toujours très faible. Moi même je me porte assez bien. Je serai charmé d'avoir de vous la longue Edition: current; Page: [551] lettre dont vous me parlez, et j'espère y répondre une autre fois moins tardivement. Votre dévoué
It seems to me that in a matter so entirely domestic and personal, no one can interfere but yourself. I imagine that you should see the man, tell him what your opinion is, and arrange it with him as you find best. It is the sort of small annoyance to which every body is liable, and which every body must settle for themselves.
I have been turning over in my mind the proposal which was the subject of your note of the 17th, for founding a Professorship at King's College in the name of Mr Tooke.2 In so far as its object is to pay honor to Mr Tooke I entirely sympathise with it. Few persons have rendered greater services to P. Economy & its applications than Mr Tooke, & the value of what he has done is likely to be rated more & more highly as the subject is better understood & as the ephemeral controversies of the present time die away. But I am not certain that the best mode of demonstrating respect to Edition: current; Page: [552] his memory is the one suggested. It does not seem to me that the persons, of more or less merit, in whose name professorships have been founded at the Universities, are remembered to any purpose through those endowments. I for one do not even know when most of them lived or who they were. The present plan has certainly the recommendation of aiming at public usefulness. But to endow a permanent Professorship to an amount worth accepting by any eminent man, with the interest of subscriptions, would require a much larger sum than I shd think it would be possible to raise. And would the lecture be attended? There is a Professorship of Pol. Ec. at Univ. College but I believe there are hardly ever any pupils. This brings me to what is with me a decisive objection against the plan as connected with King's College, namely that it is a distinctively Church Institution.3 I have been fighting all my life for the principle of Schools & Colleges for all, not for Churchmen or any other class of religionists & I believe Mr Tooke's opinions on the subject were exactly the same, while K.C. was founded in avowed opposition to religious equality, as the National Schools were founded in opposition to the Lancastrian.4 I have always refused to support any kind of Church schools & for the same reason I could not join in giving any additional advantages to a Church College over those which are bound by their constitution to religious neutrality.
I heartily wish that I knew where to find such a young man as you describe. He is wanted for many other purposes besides that which you are aiming at. But I do not know of any such person.Edition: current; Page: [553]
Your project is a very good one if it could be successful.2 But of this there seems little chance. Even supposing the indifference of the English to foreign affairs overcome, you would probably find that you had only substituted one obstacle in the place of another. The English, of all ranks and classes, are at bottom, in all their feelings, aristocrats. They have some conception of liberty, & set some value on it, but the very idea of equality is strange & offensive to them. They do not dislike to have many people above them as long as they have some below them. And therefore they have never sympathized & in their present state of mind never will sympathize with any really democratic or republican party in other countries. They keep what sympathy they have for those whom they look upon as imitators of English institutions—Continental Whigs who desire to introduce constitutional forms & some securities against personal oppression—leaving in other respects the old order of things with all its inequalities & social injustices and any people who are not willing to content themselves with this, are thought unfit for liberty. There is here & there an Englishman who is an exception, but if all the exceptions were to unite I doubt their making much impression on English policy. Even Louis Napoleon was never really unpopular here until he was supposed to have insulted & threatened England.
In reply to your letter of the 9th inst. I beg to say that I have not the honor of being a member of the British Association,2 unless the body which met at Birmingham3 last year to discuss subjects connected with Social Science, has Edition: current; Page: [554] merged in the older Association; but in any case I have no prospect of having to prepare any paper for the meeting4 in September next, nor of being able to attend the meeting.
P. O'Callaghan Esq
etc. etc.
Since receiving your note, I have read your volume of Lectures2 a second time through, and I find my original opinion confirmed, that its view of the logic of Political Economy is thoroughly sound and philosophical, and expressed in clear and precise language. This is the most cardinal point of all in an Examiner,3 whose object should be to test the general direction of the pupil's faculties, still more than his positive acquirements. But your book also shews what appears to me a thorough knowledge of the questions of political economy which it touches on, and these are some of the most important.
If this expression of opinion can be of any assistance in promoting your object, you are most welcome to make use of it.
I have to acknowledge a letter from you dated June 24.
You are not the first, nor the hundredth person who has thought that he was able to prove "that a large majority of the principles or dogmas usually accepted by economists as being the settled principles of the science are wholly fallacious." I have read many such attempts: some of them more or less ingenious, others merely stupid, but all shewing equal incapacity of seeing through the most obvious paralogisms: and not only did none of them, in my judgment, effect their object, but I have rarely found that anything was to be learnt from them, even incidentally. Having obtained no better fruit from a considerable course of such reading, I may claim to be excused from giving time which I can ill spare, to the examination of any new attempts of the kind, unless I have some special reason to expect that it will differ very much in character from its predecessors. And I certainly cannot accede to your proposal, that I should not merely study the book which is to refute me and all other political economists, but also assist you in writing it. I am Sir yr obt Sert
Si j'ai un peu tardé à répondre à la lettre que vous m'avez fait l'honneur de m'adresser il y a plus d'un mois, c'est que je voulais auparavant avoir le temps de donner à votre important ouvrage,2 la lecture soigneuse qu'il mérite.
Je vois dans ce livre, l'exposition la plus philosophique qu'on ait donnée jusqu'ici des principes qu'on peut invoquer en faveur de l'intervention gouvernementale. Edition: current; Page: [556] Si je trouve que vous n'avez pas toujours donné un poids suffisant aux raisons du côté opposé je dois reconnaître que vous en avez au moins rendu compte avec une sincérité et une impartialité dignes d'un écrivain qui met la vérité et le bien public au dessus du triomphe de son opinion.
Vous avez vu par le dernier chapitre de mon Traité,3 qu'il y a bien des points de contact entre votre manière de voir et la mienne. Il n'y a entre nous d'autres différences que celles qui peuvent exister entre penseurs. J'adhère à tout ce que j'ai écrit sur la question que vous avez traitée, et j'accorde qu'il était temps que le gouvernement général de l'Angleterre se mêlât jusqu' à un certain point de surveiller des institutions locales d'ailleurs fort mal organisées, et plus corrompues encore que l'état. Malgré cela, je trouve très dangereuse la tendance que vous signalez par l'expression que "l'Angleterre s'administrative" [sic]4; et cela surtout par la raison qu'une nation qui se repose sur son gouvernement du soin de penser pour elle dans les affaires pratiques de la vie sociale, n'est pas et ne peut pas être libre. Je ne connais rien de plus fatal à la liberté qu'une bureaucratie très capable et très fortement organisée, à la tête d'un peuple qui ne cultive pas, par une active gérance de ses intérêts collectifs, le sens pratique des affaires sociales.
Mr Russell,2 the young man who wrote to you about the Poona Professorship,3 called on me the day after I received your note. He seemed a reasonable Edition: current; Page: [557] and modest person enough, but with rather vague notions about the nature of the information he was in quest of. I was able however to give him some particulars about the prospects of personal advancement, and the general eligibility of the position of a teacher of Hindoos. I also recommended to him such books as I thought most worth his reading.
You are well out of dusty London at this season; though we by no means find it necessary to go so far as Annan4 for the calm and silence you speak of. We have a quiet corner down here, where we shall be at any time happy to see you.
You are a much better correspondent than I am. I really do not know how many letters I have received from you since I wrote one. I am always busy, and have been particularly so of late; but your last letter especially (dated Feb. 14) contains so many points of interest, that I will not delay any longer replying to it.
The history it contains of the constitutional changes which have succeeded one another in your colony since what may be called its enfranchisement, has connected and made intelligible the scattered information I had picked up from the newspapers. You have certainly now obtained a very democratic constitution,2 and I am glad to see by the papers that you have yourself, since you wrote, had the forming of an administration to work it.3 No constitution, less democratic, would be either practicable, or probably desirable in the long run, in a society composed like that of the Australian colonies. The only thing which seems wanting to make the suffrage really universal, is to get rid of the Toryism of sex, by admitting women to vote; and it will be a great test how far the bulk of your population deserve to have the suffrage themselves, Edition: current; Page: [558] their being willing or not to extend it to women. I am sorry, by the way, that the vulgar and insulting expression "manhood suffrage"4 has found its way to Australia. Whether so intended or not, it asserts the exclusion of women as a doctrine, which is worse than merely ignoring them as was done by giving the name universal suffrage to a suffrage limited to men. The adoption of the ballot in Victoria5 has made some noise here, and has been a good deal appealed to by its advocates in parliament. You have heard, no doubt, of the dinner given by Nicholson.6 It will perhaps surprise you that I am not now a supporter of the ballot, though I am far from thinking that I was wrong in supporting it formerly. You remember, I daresay, a passage which always seemed to me highly philosophical, in my father's History of India, where he discriminates between the cases in which the ballot is in his estimation desirable and those in which it is undesirable:7 now I think that the election of members of parliament has passed, in the course of the last 25 years, out of the former class into the latter. In the early part of the century there was more probability of bad votes from the coercion of others, than from the voter's own choice: but I hold that the case is now reversed, and that an elector gives a rascally vote incalculably oftener from his own personal or class interest, or some mean feeling of his own, the influence of which would be greater under secret suffrage than from the prompting of some other person who has power over him. Coercive influences have vastly abated, and are abating every day: a landlord cannot now afford to part with a good tenant because he is not politically subservient: and even if there were universal suffrage, the idea of a manufacturer forcing his workpeople to vote against the general feeling of their class, is almost out of the question: in this as in so many other things, defendit numerus. If these things are true in England, they must be still more true in Australia, where I cannot imagine that any artificial security can be required to ensure freedom of voting. But if there be even a doubt on the subject, the doubt ought surely to turn the scale in favour of publicity. Nothing less than the most positive and powerful reasons of expediency would justify putting in abeyance a principle so important in forming the moral character either of an individual or of a people, as the obligation on every one to be ready to Edition: current; Page: [559] avow and justify whatever he does, affecting the interests of others. I have long thought that in this lies the main advantage of the public opinion sanction: not in compelling or inducing people to act as public opinion dictates, but in making it necessary for them, if they do not, to have a firm ground in their own conviction to stand on, and to be capable of maintaining it against attack. I shall probably at some time write and publish something about the ballot, which will shew the grounds of my present opinion more fully,8 and perhaps more clearly, than I have now done. There is another constitutional point which I must touch upon, because you say you have quoted me on the subject, and my former opinion is, to say the least, very much shaken, the payment of members of parliament.9 There is, no doubt, something to be said for it, especially where, as you remark, there is no unoccupied class; but I am afraid of its raising up just such a class, of men without any fixed occupation but that of being in parliament, for the sake of the certain payment as members and the possible one as placemen. Certainly, by all accounts, the American legislatures, both state and federal, are very much composed of a low class of adventurers whose principal object is money, and some Americans have a decided opinion that the payment of members is one great cause of this. By the way, as you have quoted Bailey10 and me on this subject, I wish you would quote us on the subject of women's suffrage also.—The representation of minorities seems to me not only a good but a highly democratic measure. The ideal of a democracy is not that a mere majority of the people should have all the representation, but that if possible every portion of the constituency should possess an influence in the election proportional to its numbers. This cannot be realized literally, but it seems to me a good arrangement that any portion of the constituency amounting to a third should be able to obtain a third of the representation, by concerting to aim at no more. This should not be done by limiting each voter to fewer votes than there are members to be elected, which curtailing the power of the individual voter, must always be unpopular. The plan I like is the cumulative method,11 which I am glad to see has been carried. This plan has also the advantage that when a voter can give all his votes to one person, intensity of preference carries weight as well as the mere fact of preference: an arrangement very favorable to candidates who stand on personal merit, as compared with those who are voted for only because they belong to a party. I see you think that this plan will increase the influence of Edition: current; Page: [560] the Irish Catholics: notwithstanding my good opinion of Duffy,12 I should be sorry for this result, but the objection is only temporary, and the advantage permanent.—About education and the public lands, you seem to be in the right track, and with a good prospect of keeping in it.
There is probably little I could tell you about English politics that you do not already know. The East India Company has fought its last battle,13 and I have been in the thick of the fight. The Company is to be abolished, but we have succeeded in getting nearly all the principles which we contended for, adopted in constituting the new government, and our original assailants feel themselves much more beaten than we do. The change though not so bad as at first seemed probable, is still, in my opinion, much for the worse. The difficulty of governing India in any tolerable manner, already so much increased by the mutiny and its consequences,14 will become an impossibility if a body so ignorant and incompetent on Indian (to say nothing of other) subjects as Parliament, comes to make a practice of interfering. In other respects, politics are more satisfactory than usual. The defeat of all the attempts to make England instrumental to keeping Louis Napoleon where he is,15 and the conversion of the Tory chiefs into temporary Radicals for the purpose of remaining in place,16 are the best things that have happened in Europe for a long time. The complete disconcerting of the old placehunters, and the failure of all their attempts to form a party17 are very agreeable and amusing to all but themselves.
Il y a bientôt trois mois que je dois une réponse à votre dernière lettre, mais vous savez comme je suis occupé, et j'espère que vous m'excuserez. Edition: current; Page: [561] Celle de mes occupations qui est depuis quelque temps la plus pressante, tire maintenant à sa fin: la Compagnie des Indes, comme gouvernement, va cesser d'exister,2 mais elle périt avec un certain éclat, et on a suivi la plupart de ses conseils dans l'organisation du gouvernement qu'on va mettre à sa place. Ce résultat, contraire à l'attente générale, est dû en grande partie aux divers écrits que la Compagnie a fait paraître, et auxquels je n'ai pas été étranger.3 Malgré ce succès, je suis peu disposé à accepter une place dans la nouvelle administration, et je profiterai probablement de l'occasion pour obtenir ma retraite.4 Dans ce cas nous ferons usage de notre liberté pour voyager; mais la nouvelle loi donnant six mois pour effectuer le changement, je ne serai pas libre avant la fin de l'année, et dans le cas même où nous irions à Florence ce ne pourrait être qu'à un temps très éloigné.
Vos observations sur l'Inde sont d'une grande justesse, vû le peu de documents qui sont à votre portée. Vous avez surtout très justement apprécié le genre d'hommes qu'on a souvent nommés Gouverneurs de Bombay et de Madras.5 Les nominations à ces fonctions-là sont faites par le gouvernement, et non par la Compagnie; et le général Adam,6 dont vous parlez dans votre lettre, en fut un des plus nuls. Il est vrai aussi que les Anglais, en général, ne se font pas aimer des races indigènes, ce qui, au reste, se peut dire également des autres peuples européens qui gouvernent des pays éloignés, habités par d'autres races. Cependant les populations de l'Inde reconnaissent généralement que l'administration anglo indienne est juste. Elle ne les rançonne ni ne les tyrannise comme leurs propres chefs, et elle tâche de leur donner de bonnes lois et des tribunaux honnêtes et impartiaux, chose inconnue en Asie avant elle. Quant aux princes indigènes, et surtout à l'Oude, vous avez été mal informé, ce qui n'est pas étonnant. On n'a pas violé la foi des traités: au contraire, les traités exigeaient que les princes de l'Oude fissent une réforme complète de leur gouvernement atroce, et on les a par une fausse délicatesse laissé violer cet engagement pendant cinquante ans, en se contentant de remontrances qui n'étaient jamais suivies d'effet.7 Enfin on s'est lassé Edition: current; Page: [562] de cette indulgence, et on a dépossédé une famille indigne de régner, qui sans notre appui eût été chassée depuis longtemps: en lui assurant toutefois une grande richesse. Cette histoire serait trop longue pour une lettre, mais je pourrai vous la raconter quelque jour si elle vous intéresse.
Pardonnez moi de n'avoir pas encore reconnu réception de votre excellent livre.2 D'abord je voulais le lire avant d'en parler, et plus tard je fus si occupé que j'ai ajourné toute lettre qui pouvait souffrir un retard. Je vous aurais assurément témoigné mes remerciments la première fois que je vous eusse vu.
C'est presqu'une chose heureuse qu'un homme léger et sans autorité comme Lord Normanby, ait reproduit les calomnies ridicules et atroces de 1848,3 puisque cela vous a donné une occasion de les écraser comme vous l'avez fait. Lord Normanby, comme l'aristocratie et la bourgeoisie anglaise en général, a tout simplement cru ce que lui disaient les contrerévolutionnaires français qu'il voyait, et dont l'opinion anglaise vulgaire est devenue l'écho. Parmi les membres du gouvernement provisoire, Lamartine est le seul qu'il voyait aussi, et le seul, par conséquent qu'il n'a pas injurié. S'il vous eût fréquenté, il aurait fait, de vous aussi, une exception. Ce n'est pas un malhonnête homme, mais il a toutes les faiblesses de sa classe, et entr'autres celle d'adopter sans examen, sur les affaires des autres pays, tout témoignage et tous les on dit de ceux qu'il regarde comme représentant l'opinion conforme à celle de son parti en angleterre. Tous ces mensongeslà étaient oubliés, mais l'impression restait, et il fallait qu'on les rappelât de l'oubli pour qu'il fût possible, en les réfutant, d'en atténuer l'effet. Il n'y a pas d'opinion à laquelle on tient aussi fortement qu'à celle dont on a oublié les fondements. Vous avez bien profité de l'occasion. Votre ouvrage sera historique, et ceux qui désirent la vérité pourront désormais en juger par eux-mêmes en comparant l'accusation et la réponse. Aussi vous avez dû voir Edition: current; Page: [563] que la réfutation n'a pas été sans effet. Toutes les notices qu'on a faites sur votre ouvrage,4 au moins toutes celles que j'ai vues, malgré l'extrême ignorance propre aux écrivains anglais sur la politique étrangère, laissent voir que si vous n'avez pas beaucoup ébranlé les préventions contraires aux hommes et aux événements de 1848, du moins on a ressenti l'effet de la loyauté et de la franchise de vos explications.
Vous n'êtes pas oublié ici. Ma femme vous cite souvent, et me prie de vous présenter ses compliments affectueux.
My dearest will I know want to hear whether I was in time for the train, and how I prospered, so I write immediately. Happily the N. Kent was only two or three minutes behind time, so I got to Euston station in ample time—& on getting to Derby, found I could go on in half an hour by railway to Ambergate, six miles from here. So all was right, and I have come from Ambergate here in a phaeton, along a valley a good deal like the Wye near Tintern—a narrow space of meadow between high & mostly thickly wooded hills, & even the river at the bottom looking nearly as large as the Wye though really much smaller as to quantity of water. This place as far as I could see it in coming & can see it from the window at which I am writing, seems quite a village, not at all the dressed up street like watering place I thought it might be—& the high hills & perpendicular cliffs come quite close to it. The weather has been all day & is now most beautiful & there has been no rain lately nor for a long while in Derbyshire & Leicestershire except two or three thunderstorms. The grass looks much more parched than with us, that is in the level country, for here they say there have been showers. The difference of climate is shewn in this that much of the grass is not yet carried, & some not cut. There seems a prospect of fine weather. Thanks to my precious darling for encouraging me to come. I am now going out for a stroll & Edition: current; Page: [564] shall come in to tea, having had a good dinner of soup & roast lamb at the Railway station at Derby, strange to relate. It seems fully as pretty as I expected & this seems a very clean & prettily situated, & not very pretentious inn though I do not think I shall like the people who keep it. I cannot yet tell my movements but will write tomorrow. If dear one writes tomorrow (which I shall not expect) direct Post Office Matlock. Adieu my own darling love.
My dearest love, I have pretty well exhausted Matlock—yesterday evening I climbed the highest hill in this part of the country, the one called Masson, & between that walk & this morning's I have gone to nearly every point & caught every view from both sides of this gorge of about a mile & a half in length. It is exceedingly pretty, some points even striking, but one sees the best at first: beyond a narrow compass one only passes or looks into country pretty indeed but in a tamer way. I should like to pass a day here with you but I question if we should care to stay longer. So I mean to go on to Chatsworth by a train at ¼ before 4. In case there is a letter tomorrow morning I shall not lose it, for as the distance is but ¼ of an hour by railway I shall run down here for it. In this way I shall make best use of my time. I have done pretty well as to plants & have had the best of weather—yesterday evening & night were of the most perfect brightness: today it is cloudy but warm, with occasional outbreaks of sunshine. It feels quite strange that yesterday morning we should have been talking of the necessity of my having a fire: all the care I have needed was to keep my feet cool. The people here say however that they have had it very cold a week ago—& two rainy days this last week. If you write tomorrow darling, please direct to Bakewell which seems the best centre, for Haddon Hall, Monsal & Millers-dales & even Castleton if I have time to go there. I shall write again tomorrow & then not on Wednesday or Thursday as she said, but on Friday. This watering place seems to have but few people as yet, & those of a rather humble character. There is but the least little bit of town if one can call it so, & the Edition: current; Page: [565] rest is houses dotted about a small portion of the side of a very steep slope. The opposite side of the gorge is steep woody cliff nearly the whole way, & the part of it called High Tor is a sort of Salève2 on a small scale. There are plenty of cut walks but no drives except the high road up the gorge. Adieu my darling from your own
I came on, dearest, from Matlock as I said, & when I got to Rowsley left my portmanteau to go by the omnibus & walked to & across Chatsworth to this inn which belongs to the Duke2 & is on the outskirts of the park: & in the evening I walked over all the finest parts of the park. All the way from Matlock is a broad valley between high, green, often wooded hills: at Rowsley it forks into two, in the lefthand of which is Bakewell; the righthand (rather the smaller valley but with the larger river) is filled up by Chatsworth. It is a very fine park & a great ugly clumsy house. This morning after going by railway to Matlock & back on the chance of a letter, I walked round by Haddon Hall, saw it, & made a circuit hither. Before I leave this evening for Bakewell I shall endeavour to see the conservatories of Chatsworth: the house I don't want to see. Today began very hot, but the wind had changed a little to the west & the day got overcast & threatened rain; but there has been none as yet. I shall stay at Bakewell all tomorrow at any rate: whether I shall excurse from it to Castleton or go at once to Dovedale will depend upon the facilities I find. I hold to returning on Saturday, but it may perhaps be on Saturday night, so as to arrive on Sunday morning. If my precious love writes tomorrow, direct to Bakewell, as I shall not leave till the post comes in. After that if she goes to Folkestone it will not be worth while for her to write again, but I shall enquire on Saturday morning at Tissington near Ashbourne. Edition: current; Page: [566] I have been most unexpectedly fortunate in weather though there must have been more rain on the whole season here than further south, to judge by the extreme greenness of everything. I shall write again on Friday my darling wife, till then adieu & a thousand blessings such as you give to your
My darling! I received her most precious letter yesterday morning and the pleasure it gave was almost worth the absence. As to prolonging my stay, what she so kindly & sweetly writes would induce me to do it, if it were not that this excursion has not quite fulfilled our expectations or rather hopes in the matter of health. I have found no deficiency of strength, but have never been without a dry furred tongue, & never many hours without other decided sensations of indigestion, & this in spite of the greatest care, & observance of your advice in every particular. An excursion of this sort is excellent to strengthen me against indigestion, but it does not perhaps tend so much to cure it when it exists. Perhaps the regularity of home may do better. I dare say however I shall be the better for this afterwards as has so often been the case. As I shall therefore see her on Sunday morning & she will not get this till Saturday, I will keep all description for a nice talk & will only say that, contrary to my expectation, the place which seems most suitable for us to make any stay at is Buxton which I walked to yesterday, returning on the top of the omnibus. On consideration I thought that Dovedale had not the étoffe of a place for more than a day, so I was driven there in a phaeton this morning from here—the place was not a disappointment but was soon seen & I have just come in from an eleven miles walk taken since I came back. Tomorrow morning I shall go to Castleton & shall have the greater part of tomorrow & the greater part of Saturday to spend there as I shall go from thence to Sheffield, no great distance, & return by a night train from there, arriving in town at about five on Sunday morning when I will rest a little & breakfast & then come home to my darling. The weather has been excellent—the last two afternoons there has been a little rain, not enough to do any harm, & tonight there has been a little since dusk, with some lightning. I found no plants Tuesday or today, but yesterday was a splendid day for Edition: current; Page: [567] them, as I found five, of which Jacob's ladder was one. Adieu with a thousand loves from your
Friday morng. I have only now got my darling's second sweet & lovely letter—through the stupidity doubtless of the Post Office. One does not think it necessary in England to ask to look over the letters oneself, but I shd have done so if there had been none this morning. You see darling the reasons are strongest for going home. It has rained all night but seems as if it would clear for today. your own
Do not pay any regard to anything you may have heard or read about seven vacancies.2 They are the very bad guesses of people entirely uninformed. No one can have information, as the Directors do not themselves know whom they will elect,3 and the Government will not determine whom to nominate until it knows who have been elected. I do not think that any single vacancy is certain (or even very probable) except Guildford4 and I do not think it at all probable that Reigate will be vacated—but this is only my own guess, perhaps no better founded than those of others—and I beg you will not mention it. I do not think I shall have earlier information than yourself on the subject.
I find difficulty in getting sanitary information for you here.5 The best chance will be by your conferring personally with Mr Appleton6 of the Military Department in this house.
Your paper2 is very good, and full of useful matter. I do not know if I can suggest any additions to it but I will go through it a second time with that view. There are some very bad misprints or lapsus calami in it, rendering several of the sentences obscure & confused.
If you want the paper returned immediately, drop me a line.
I agree with you about the representation of minorities but not about effecting it by single votes, which would make the minority equal to the majority. I prefer Marshall's plan of cumulative votes.3
I beg to acknowledge the receipt of the remaining £250 due on account of the fourth edition of the Political Economy.2
I suppose you are delaying the account of the sale of the Logic3 & Essays4 last year, until there is a balance of profit.
Pray excuse my not having sent this book sooner.2 It had been mislaid.
The apparently slow progress of Cooperation is not discouraging. It cannot progress more rapidly than the intelligence and moral feelings of operatives. The interest of each is indeed best promoted by the good of the whole, but no selfish person will ever know or believe this. It is just as well that cooperative experiments should only be attempted by those who are capable of making them succeed. Those which exist are most precious instruments of popular education. The Rochdale history is really glorious.3
I . . . have been interested by the information as to your papers in the Rhinish Museum.2 I was disappointed however at your not saying anything of your historical work on Greek philosophy,3 which I expect will be very valuable not only by throwing new light on historical points, of which there are always a great number to be cleared up by any competent inquirer, but also by exhibiting the speculations of the ancients from the point of view of the experience philosophy, a thing hardly yet attempted, and least of all in your country.Edition: current; Page: [570]
I have no objection to your annexing to the Logic any part of the controversy with Whewell4 which you think likely to be useful. There are not many defences extant of the ethics of utility, and I have sometimes thought of reprinting this and other papers I have written on the same as well as on other subjects.
I thank you heartily for your unsought and only too complimentary expression of the friendly feelings of which I had already received from you individually so many proofs. I have not long had the honour of presiding over you; but during that time, if it had been the sole object of all of you to make my situation agreeable to me, you could not have more effectually exerted yourselves for that purpose.
It is no mere reciprocation of politeness when I say that I have been proud of my associates; and my feelings on my retirement would have been very different from what they are, were it not for the conviction that I leave behind me an office surpassed by none and equalled by few in the high qualities of the chiefs of departments, and the general efficiency of the establishment.
Believe me to be, gentlemen, with sincere regard, yours faithfully and obliged,
Mama is decidedly better today, and has no doubt that she shall be quite well with two or three days more rest. Her head is a great deal better than yesterday, but still it aches with the least exertion, and therefore she asks me to write for her. It has been one of the usual attacks of fever. She has taken the fever mixture and some pills, and it is now over. She is very weak, and does not mean to get up till tomorrow, when she has ordered a warm bath in the bedroom which she says will quite set her up. This is the exact state of the case, therefore be sure there is nothing to be uneasy about. As it is doubtful if they deliver letters on Sunday she will not write again till Saturday. If this reaches you in time to write a word to Avignon on Saturday, it will be sure to be in time, we shall go so slowly: or you might even write on Sunday with scarcely a chance of not being in time: besides that at the worst it would be sent on. And now, Mama says, adieu dear—as do I. Yours
My wife is lying at the Hotel de l'Europe here, so very ill that neither she nor I have any hope but in you to save her. It is a quite sudden attack which Edition: current; Page: [572] came on at Lyons, of incessant coughing which prevents sleeping, and by the exhaustion it produces has brought her to death's door. I implore you to come immediately. I need hardly say that any expense whatever will not count for a feather in the balance. I am Dear Dr Gurney
Mama has had a tremendous attack of bronchitis with congestion & fever much worse than at Lyons. We have done everything possible & today for the first time she is a little better. The cough has been unceasing & most painful preventing her lying down day or night or getting any sleep besides that the intense nervous irritation caused by the congestion the fever & the fatigue made her almost out of her mind. We have had the best physician here but his prescriptions are too weak. She has taken a number of her own. On Thursday she did not think she shd recover. She thought you wd see by her letters from Lyons how ill she was but she did not like to alarm you. Today she is certainly better. The cough is less frequent & the head for the first time more calm. We took every precaution on the road. She was carried by the porters in a chair to the railway at Lyons & we had a coupé to ourselves from Valence here but she says the whole [?] incidents of such a journey are totally unfitted for her. The excessive hardship of every part—the inability to have anything fit for a delicate stomach to eat, the tremendous noise everywhere, the coarse manners of the women, the intense fatigue of waiting in the railway rooms for at least half an hour & then the immense distance to go both to & from them. This inn is thought one of the best in France & we appear to have the best rooms yet bedrooms & sitting room are of red tiles with thin carpet over wch she endeavoured to obviate the first day by using a footstool but in vain—but still far more than all the evident fatal Edition: current; Page: [573] effect upon her of the air of the S[outh] of F[rance]. She dragged herself up to write you a few words on Wedy that you might not be anxious, hoping it wd prove as she said—but she felt ill as she wrote & got gradually worse till at night she was very ill. She does not wish you to come to her because she thinks she has taken the turn to get better & therefore it wd be a very great pity to break up your good arrangements wch are a great pleasure to her to hear of. You shall know continually how she is going on. We have got all your letters from Montp[ellier] today here & continue to write here for it will probably be weeks before we leave this place. All notice of your letters must be at a future time.
She is anxious that you shd not think of coming to her. She wd be extremely annoyed if you did.
And now she says adieu dear girl in haste.
By the Electrical and International Telegraph Company.
She is not better or perhaps worse have written to beg Dr G[urney] to come.2
Par vos fonctions officielles, vous avez eu connaissance du malheureux événement qui a créé pour ma famille avec la ville que vous administrez un lien indissoluble. Nous croyons ne pouvoir rendre un meilleur hommage à celle que nous avons perdue qu'en faisant autant que possible les choses que, vivante, elle eût voulu faire; et comme elle n'aurait pas pu venir s'établir à Edition: current; Page: [574] Avignon sans que les malheureux de cette ville en eussent profité, nous souhaitons que, dans la triste circonstance où nous nous trouvons, ils aient encore à la remercier de quelque chose. Veuillez donc, monsieur le maire, accepter au profit de la Caisse des pauvres le don de mille francs, somme proportionnée à nos facultés plutôt qu'à nos désirs, et que nous vous prions de vouloir bien inscrire au nom de ma bien-aimée épouse, Mme Henriette Mill, née Hardy, décédée à Avignon le 3 novembre 1858.
Agréez. . . .
[Mill, in writing to his brother James after his bereavement, says:—]
When I was happy, I never went after any one; those that wanted me might come to me.
The hopes with which I commenced this journey have been fatally frustrated. My wife, the companion of all my feelings, the prompter of all my best thoughts, the guide of all my actions, is gone! She was taken ill at this place with a violent attack of bronchitis or pulmonary congestion—the medical men here could do nothing for her, & before the physician at Nice2 who saved her life once before could arrive, all was over.
It is doubtful if I shall ever be fit for anything public or private, again. The spring of my life is broken. But I shall best fulfil her wishes by not giving up the attempt to do something useful, and I am not quite alone. I have with me her daughter, the one person besides myself who most loved her & whom she most loved, & we help each other to bear what is inevitable. I am sure of your sympathy, but if you knew what she was you would feel how little any sympathy can do.3Edition: current; Page: [575]
We return straight to England but shall be detained here for some days longer & I beg of you the kind office of inserting the inclosed notice twice in the Times & once in the Post, Herald & Daily News & in the principal weekly papers. Believe me my dear Thornton
[The Notice]
Died on the 3d November, at Avignon, after a few days illness, to the inexpressible grief & irreparable loss of those who survive her, Harriet, the dearly loved wife of John Stuart Mill, late of the East India House.4
The sum which Sir J.O.2 received shall be paid into your banker's as soon as the proceeds of the sale of some securities come in which will be on the 1st of December. It is well earned by the sacrifices you made3 & above all, the risks you incurred to health & practice in the hope of saving that precious life—& though I am not in circumstances to think lightly of such a sum, I never less grudged any payment. Would to God it had been all I have & that we had written to you three days sooner! You did all that man could, & your presence was an immense good to us even as it was. We4 have only just arrived here, having remained at Avignon to see her removed to her (& our) last resting place & to complete the purchase of a small house & garden near the cemetery5 which we shall now frequently require. Helen's health kept up while we remained at Avignon but broke down as soon as we arrived here: She is however better today & I hope is doing well. She begs to be Edition: current; Page: [576] kindly remembered to you. To myself the return to the place which is full of memories unlike those of that dreadful time is soothing—but no one except ourselves can know what a blank our life now is.
I trust you will not have supposed that your note would have remained unanswered from any other cause than my not having received it. It came into my hands two days ago, on my returning from a journey on the Continent, which was abruptly closed by the most melancholy event2 which could possibly have happened to me. I have now next to nothing left to care for in life, except to use such power as I have of helping forward my opinions—which it is uncertain if I shall ever again have energy enough, even if left to myself I had wisdom enough, effectually to serve by anything I can write. I have only the greater desire to be useful to fellow labourers in the same field of usefulness, and I have so many opinions and modes of thinking in common with you that I regard you as one of the principal of these. You may therefore rely on me in any quarter in which I have influence—but I have no ground for believing that Lord Stanley3 is one of these. I have seen him in private just three times—the first was when he offered me a place in the Council of India4—the last when I took leave of him on my retirement. We have conversed exactly once on any topic of public interest. He has on these different occasions been very polite and flattering, but I have no reason to think that he retained any interest in me from the time when he knew that I was not going to serve under him. The mode of transacting business which Edition: current; Page: [577] he has adopted, almost exclusively with the Chairmen of Committees of Council, has not brought him into much contact with the officers of the India House, and I had therefore no opportunity of acquiring any influence with him. This being the case it would be an impertinence in me to volunteer any recommendation to him, especially if it relates to the patronage of another minister, a case in which, as I know, ministers have generally the strongest feeling of delicacy about intermeddling even in the slightest manner. I am therefore unable to help you in the way you propose; but if you think it can be of any use to you to mention me, in any terms however strong, either verbally or in writing, to any minister or other person whatever, as one who would derive the greatest satisfaction both public and private from your obtaining what you seek—and who would think it a credit to any minister to obtain the aid of abilities and principles like yours for the public service, and an absolute disgrace not to avail himself of them when offered—you have my fullest authority to do this—and there are some members even of the present Government, especially Bulwer5 and Disraeli,6 on whom so decided an opinion from me if known to them might perhaps have some influence.
I knew that you would feel with me and for me. Your letter has done as much good to me and to my fellow-sufferers as we are now capable of receiving.
If I were to attempt to express in the most moderate terms what she was, even you would hardly believe me. Without any personal tie, merely to have known her as I do would have been enough to make life a blank now that she has disappeared from it. I seem to have cared for things or persons, events, opinions on the future of the world, only because she cared for them: the Edition: current; Page: [578] sole motive that remains strong enough to give any interest to life is the desire to do what she would have wished; but will this give the strength or the energy to do any new thing? Perhaps not. I shall try, however. I can at least put in order for publication what had been already written in concert with her, and this is my occupation for the present.
Pray express to Mrs Grote my gratitude for her kind sympathy. I will write again soon.
The concluding words of my note2 were for yourself only. But you have my full authority to say, to all and sundry, wherever and whenever it can be of any use to you, that I take the strongest interest in your application, that I should derive the greatest satisfaction both on private and on public grounds from your success, and (in the words I before used) should think it a credit to any minister to obtain the aid of abilities and principles like yours for the public service, and an absolute disgrace not to avail himself of them when offered.
Herbert Spencer Esq.
You can have my little book "On Liberty"2 for publication this season. The manuscript is ready; but you will probably desire to look through it, or Edition: current; Page: [579] to have it looked through by some one in whom you confide, as there are some things in it which may give offence to prejudices.
Should you decide to publish it, I propose that we should make the same arrangement as we made for the Political Economy, viz. to publish one edition at half profit, and if another is called for, make a fresh agreement respecting it.
I have also, prepared for publication, a selection of my articles3 published in periodicals which I should like to bring out somewhat later in the season. If it would suit you, I propose the same terms. There are enough to make, I should think, two volumes of the size & type of the early editions of Carlyle's Miscellanies:4 but I have not calculated exactly, and it may extend to three. I send you a list of the subjects.
[In reply to my condolence, he said] I have recovered the shock as much as I ever shall. Henceforth, I shall be only a conduit for ideas.
Comme vous avez bien voulu témoigner le désir d'avoir de nos nouvelles, j'écris uniquement pour vous en donner, car je ne me sens pas encore capable d'écrire une lettre qui puisse vous intéresser à tout autre égard. Nous sommes arrivés sans accident et la santé de ma chère fille s'est soutenue jusqu'à la fin du voyage mais pour s'ébranler aussitôt après. Dès le lendemain elle fut malade mais elle est à présent à peu près rétablie et j'espère qu'elle s'y maintiendra. Elle et son frère se recommandent à votre souvenir. Quant à moi j'ai éprouvé un véritable soulagement en me retrouvant dans le lieu où nous avons vécu heureux avec celle que nous déplorons, et où son image n'est pas mêlée aux souvenirs déchirants de sa dernière maladie. Votre ville et tout le pays du midi me seraient en horreur si son tombeau n'y était pas—ce qui en fait pour moi un lieu non seulement sacré mais le seul, sauf celui-ci, qui me soit cher.
J'espère que l'éditeur2 de la traduction française de mon Ec.Pol. vous en a envoyé de ma part un exemplaire. Vous y trouverez, si je ne me trompe, autre chose qu'un simple traité scientifique, et j'aime à croire que ce que vous y verrez de mes opinions et de mes sentiments ne sera pas de nature à affaiblir la sympathie morale et intellectuelle que vous avez semblé ressentir envers moi.
Agréez mon cher M Ménard avec l'expression de notre reconnaissance, celle de mon amitié et de mon dévouement.
J'espère que Mme M. se porte bien et que la santé de votre petite demoiselle se rétablit.
Your letter found me under the shock of the bitterest calamity which could possibly have fallen on me. I have lost by a death, which may almost be called sudden, my perfect friend, companion, guide, teacher, all in one. The little you saw of her may have been enough to make you surmise that there was much more to see, but nothing I could say could give you the smallest idea of what she was or of what her loss is to me.
You will not wonder that I care very little now for speculative controversies. I am obliged to you however for sending Professor Apelt's2 treatise, & the other pamphlet. I have not yet looked into them, but the passages you cite from Apelt are sufficient to convince me that I should not in any case have thought of answering him. If you are yourself inclined to append to the translation any remarks on his objections, they are sure to be fresher & more vigorous than mine would be, & are likely to be a valuable addition to the book itself.
I wait with much expectation for your historical essay.3 My small volume on Liberty4 will be published early this winter. Its subject is moral, social, & intellectual liberty, asserted against the despotism of society whether exercised by governments or by public opinion.
Before receiving this you will already have heard the terrible & most unexpected blow which has fallen upon us. I have not felt equal to writing to you before & now when I do, language is so utterly incapable of expressing such a loss, or what that loss is to us, that it is sickening to attempt it. But you will desire to know some of the sad details. We left England on Edition: current; Page: [582] the 12th of October, intending to pass the winter at Hyères, where she had wintered once before or at some other place in the south of France. For the first time we were able to do as we pleased as I had just retired from the I. H. & we were looking forward to a happy half year or year in a mild climate. She was apparently in her usual health, perhaps even better than usual, & as fit for travelling as when she set out on other much longer journeys by which her health had not suffered but benefitted. She continued pretty well up to Lyons, but when there she had a sharp feverish attack, which yielded to the usual remedies but left a good deal of cough behind it. We staid there a week, at the end of which she felt sufficiently recovered to go slowly onward, but the day after we arrived at Avignon she was again taken very ill—she was better the next day, but the improvement was not progressive—and a great shortness of breathing came on. She had the best medical men the place afforded but as usual with French physicians their remedies were not sufficiently powerful & after a few days becoming alarmed though we never suspected immediate danger, I wrote to Dr Gurney of Nice2 who attended her in a dangerous illness there in 1853, asking him to come over & see her. He came instantly but found all at an end! The very day before her last we thought her illness had taken a favorable turn. From the symptoms Dr Gurney thinks the cause of death was excessive & violent congestion of the lungs. She is buried in the cemetery of the town of Avignon & with her all our earthly happiness; we have henceforth no interest in life but to fulfil her wishes in all we can, & to return continually to her grave. We have bought a small house & garden near the cemetery, where we shall go early in spring & intend to pass much of our time there until our turn comes for being buried along with her. Algernon would have written to you if I had not, but I wished to write myself if able. He & Helen are pretty well, though Helen at one time broke down & had an attack of illness, but fortunately it proved short. It is useless to write more. Believe me yrs very truly
Arthur Hardy Esq
I understand that a difficulty has arisen with respect to the publication of my friend Mr Bain's second volume (which completes his work as an Analytical Edition: current; Page: [583] Treatise on the Mind)2 in consequence of the limited sale of the first volume, which though not discouraging as to prospects of ultimate success, has not yet repaid its expenses. Both Mr Grote and myself are very desirous that the remaining volume should be published, as it is more popular than the first both in subject and in execution and we think it likely not only to sell better but to add to the sale of its predecessor. We are therefore willing, if you will publish the second volume this season, to guarantee you against loss by it, to the extent of £100 (that is each of us to the extent of £50). I mean that if at the end of such time as you would be willing to wait for indemnification (and which should be agreed on) you are still a loser by vol. 2 we will make up the loss if short of £100, & pay £100 towards it if greater; the subsequent proceeds being applied to our indemnification.
I should like to stipulate that if we then pay up the whole of your loss by both volumes, the entire copyright should belong to us—that is to Mr Bain himself to whom we should transfer it. I am
Your letter to Avignon was sent to me here. I thank you for your expressions of sympathy. But you cannot know, nor can anything I could say enable you to conceive, the immensity of my loss.
I am glad to hear that your health is so much better. When you write to Mary or Harriet, please to thank them for their letters, and to give my best remembrances to Mr Ferraboschi.
I am quite disposed to give you such help as I can in fighting the questions you are at work upon. In happier circumstances I might have assisted actively by personal exertions. I always meditated joining the Law Amendment Society2 when we returned from abroad. I can now only work with my pen. You shall have the letter you mention, if you think it would be useful to the object, but before writing it I should like to read your paper3 once more quietly through.
With regard to Parliamry Reform, what you urge me to do is already done. I have a pamphlet4 by me, written several years ago, which only required a little adaptation to the present time. This it has received, and I propose publishing it about the time of the meeting of Parliament. If the knowledge of this would in any way interest Lord Grey,5 I should be glad that you should tell him. I cannot hope that he will agree with the whole of what I have written, but I believe he will with a considerable part of it. I am
I received your letter addressed to Avignon & in writing recently to Jane2 I asked her to thank you for it.
You always write as if you had some great reason to complain of me & as if some caprice of mine had been the cause of the estrangement as you call Edition: current; Page: [585] it. I have always told you & now repeat that your own conduct & manifestations of feeling were the sole cause of the existence of any estrangement & you have given no sign from that time to this that your conduct and feelings had been in any way wrongly interpreted.
I am obliged to you for the opportunity of reading Lord Grey's paper,2 and am glad that he is applying himself to the subject with a view both to present exigencies and to permanent principles. It is very desirable that his suggestions should be made as public as possible to invite discussion and call out other modes of effecting the same object. The essential is, as you observe, that the object itself should be recognized as necessary. My own thoughts on the matter have been travelling in a rather different channel, except as to the representation of minorities, which I have long held to be of the utmost importance, and also that the cumulative voting which Lord Grey advocates3 is the best mode of effecting it. His suggestion of the choice of a certain number of members by the House itself seems to me very valuable.4 I have often thought of it as a good mode of constituting an Upper House in a democratic constitution, but never before as applicable to any of the members of the Lower House itself. But I do not think they should, in the latter case, be chosen for life. There are considerable objections to making a small, and the least popular section of the House, a kind of privileged order within it, and still greater objections to their being irremovable. And what weighs with me quite as much, is the importance, when working against the current, of retaining whatever advantage is to be found in adhering to the old constitutional landmarks. It conflicts with everybody's idea of a House of Commons that any of its members should hold their seats for life. Edition: current; Page: [586] The same objection applies still more strongly to the proposal that the Crown should appoint a certain number of members by warrant.5 There would not, I think, be a chance that this could be carried, or that even if carried it would be permanent, and it seems unnecessary, since election by the House itself at the commencement of each Parliament would answer the same purpose. The ministers, being the leaders of the majority, would in fact nominate two thirds of the number, while the provision for cumulative voting would give a similar power over the remaining third to the leaders of the Opposition: and each side would have a strong interest in selecting to be brought into Parliament in this manner the persons who would most strengthen the party. In spite of these and all other objections, I should much prefer Lord Grey's plan exactly as it is, to a low suffrage and equal electoral districts without any regulating counterpoise.
Your letter in the D. News is excellent.6 But I am afraid, on that subject as on so many others, jacta est alea.
I returned Lord Grey's paper2 by post yesterday to your address. I now return Mr Greg's.3 I agree with him in expecting no substantial improvement in the representative system at present. But I differ from him, among many other things, in thinking that some bill will certainly pass.4 None of the parties will wish the question to lie over and give rise to a prolonged agitation. There will be a compromise. What is done may be little in amount, & that little may be more bad than good. All we can do is to point out what are the evils, and throw out suggestions which will lead people's minds in a right direction so far as they can be got to attend to them. Your letter5 (which I return) is very valuable in this way. But a letter in a newspaper is too little read—I wish you could get out your matter in some better form.
I have never been able to agree with you and Mr Greg about voting papers.6 I do not doubt their benefit in the election of poor law guardians. But in political elections, a person who does not care to vote will seldom give a good vote. He will be assailed by canvassers who will not leave him until they have seen him fill up his voting paper. It is possible that more conservative votes might be given in that way. So much the worse. When things get into a state in which any person of my opinions can wish for the success of the conservative candidate, conservative voters will have got quite sufficiently frightened to come up to the poll.
But I expect no good so long as any election expenses whatever, borne by the candidate himself, are permitted by law.7 Liberalism & Conservatism Edition: current; Page: [588] ought to unite in putting down that greatest of existing abuses. As for the measure to be expected from the present Government—all that anybody can know of it is, that it will be all trick.
I return Lord Grey's two letters.2 Independently of the hopelessness of carrying a provision for life members in a representative assembly, I should fear that to assign a superior status to one section of the House would by exciting antagonism between the elective majority and the permanent minority, do more harm than good even to the interests which the life members would represent.
I see no tenable ground for resisting the democracy of mere numbers, but by directly and openly asserting two broad principles—that every one is entitled to some voice in the representation, and that every intelligent person is entitled to a more potential voice.
If it has not occurred to Lord Grey, it would be worth suggesting to him (as he is not a politician of routine, or afraid to entertain new proposals) that one of the most conservative as well as most liberal provisions in a reform bill would be to give the franchise to all women who fulfil the rating or other conditions required of men. There is precedent for this in local elections:3 the women enfranchised would be almost solely those of the higher and middle ranks—& the immediate effects would undoubtedly be highly favorable to conservatism.
On the question of the dockyard labourers I agree with Mr Greg.4 Unless all who are in a dependent condition could be disfranchised, I see no good but harm in excluding a single class. In this country of publicity the Government influence is the least bad of the bad influences.
You will not have been surprised at my not answering your letter of Dec. 10.2 I am however sincerely thankful to you for it. No letter that I have received did me more good, and it is a real pleasure to think that, so little as you saw of her, should have made so true an impression. If I understand you rightly in your last letter as offering to translate the little book on Liberty,3 I could not desire any better fate for it, supposing that when you have read it, you think it likely to be successful and useful in Germany. I will take care that you have one of the earliest copies or the sheets, if you will let me know the safest mode of sending it, as the title might cause it to be stopped at the post or further on, under the idea of its being political. . . .
It is well you have at last perceived that it was not likely I should be inclined to commence a discussion with you about the past. Such things are either cleared up at the time or not at all. I have no ill will to you & am quite willing to put the best interpretation that the case admits of, upon everything that has happened between us. But I do not expect that I shall ever again wish to see any person (two or three excepted) unless on necessary business or for some public purpose. The melancholy life I have before me would be quite insupportable if I could not be left alone with those who are fellow sufferers with me & who feel as I do.
I write, without waiting to go through your paper, to say that it would be very repugnant to me at present to make any sort of public appearance—even Edition: current; Page: [590] that of attending a meeting. In any case I should not have liked that my first connection with the Law Amendment Society2 should be by taking the chair—an office, too, which it requires much more experience than I have had of public meetings to be qualified for. When I return from abroad I shall probably ask you or some one else to propose me as a member of the Society. I may probably then be desirous of moving actively for the promotion of public objects.
I will write you the letter I promised,3 without delay, and make any suggestions that occur to me about the paper itself.
I inclose a letter2 which I hope will serve your purpose.
I have scratched over the margin of your proof with suggested alterations, very slight in appearance but which would make a great difference in the intelligibility of the paper. It is very carelessly written as to the mere construction of the sentences. Some of the proposed alterations in page 2 have a further object—attained however by equally slight changes—that of avoiding a slur upon Malthus, not at all required for your purpose.
After revisal of the composition, it is a very telling paper.
I have read carefully twice over your paper on the advantage of enquiry by Commissions as a preparation for legislation,2 and specially for Parliamentary Edition: current; Page: [591] Reform; and I not only agree with you entirely on the general principle, but also in thinking Parliamentary Reform a very strong case for its application. Disfranchisement indeed, may be sufficiently judged of from general principles and notorious facts; but when the question is, how far to carry enfranchisement, few persons, I should think, are rash enough to imagine that they have nothing important still to learn respecting the new classes of voters to be created—their numbers, their local distribution, their degree of education (even the number of them who can read and write); their amenability to corruption, the probability of their exercising the franchise if conferred, and the influences under which they are likely to exercise it. If the franchise is to stop anywhere short of universal suffrage, or to arrive even at that by any succession of steps, the choice of the intermediate measures must necessarily be more or less a question of statistics; and the statistics of the whole subject are in their infancy. Even on so narrow a point as the admission of the £10 householders in the small towns to vote for the counties,3 all is uncertainty as to the nature of the change it would make in the composition of the county constituencies.
Your paper cannot be too much read, or too widely circulated.
I am
Edwin Chadwick Esqu.
I have gone through your proof,2 which requires as much correction in the wording as the other did. I do not know if my pencil marks are legible. Your Edition: current; Page: [592] facts are very striking, and the view of the subject one which it is of great importance to exhibit. But I do not well see where your principle is to stop, or at what place you would draw the line of demarcation between it and conflicting principles. You had better I think, not trouble yourself with what socialist writers have said against competition: It is much better that your results should be seen to come, as they do, from your own thoughts and observations.
You should not have proposed me as a member of the Law Amendment Society without asking me first.3 I should have much preferred not joining it till my return. I expect to be abroad at least a year, and I certainly shall not go near the Society till afterwards. I shall not leave finally for the Continent till some two months hence.
[His pamphlet on Parliamentary Reform, written some years previously, was revised and sent to press. On this he remarked in a letter:—] Grote, I am afraid, will not like it, on account of the ballot,2 if not other points. But I attach importance to it, as a sort of revision of the theory of representative government.
[A few days later he wrote—] Grote knows that I now differ with him on the ballot,2 and we have discussed it together, with no effect on either.
[In 1859 J.S. Mill sent Holyoake a copy of his essay On Liberty, asking him not to review it until the other reviewers had done so.]
It is likely enough to be called an infidel book in any case; but I would rather that people were not prompted to call it so.
I shall be quite unable to write anything during my stay here—and an article on the French treaty2 should be written immediately. Besides I never write well unless I feel moved to write on the particular subject—which on this subject I do not. I hope soon to find something suitable to Fraser.3
Strange as you seem to think it, I have voted at every election since I have been qualified, and have attended one electoral meeting in my own district. Edition: current; Page: [594] That meeting (here at Blackheath) gave a very favourable reception to language and doctrines far from demagogic. It is true there was little or no catechizing, and little indication of the degree of political information of the electors. I am quite aware from other evidence of the density of ignorance among the bulk of the English population—of all classes I might say: certainly of the working and lower middle class. The new introduction by the Government of a reading and writing qualification2 I regard as a striking proof of the utter want of principle of their Conservatism.
Have you seen Hare's book (the Charity Commissioner) on Representation?3 If not I beg you to read it without delay. It seems to me most masterly in theory and of the greatest possible practical value.
Voting papers, except in the form in which Hare admits them, I am more opposed to than ever, for it seems to me that they make bribery and intimidation both much easier and much more certainly effectual.
I am obliged to you for a sight of Gaultier.4 It is very sound and as you say, a good logical exercise. Shall I return it to you or to Gilbart,5 whose name I see is in it?
(1) Why say understated? Your opponents charge you with overstatement. It would be better to deny both. [Scored through.]
(2) That when, of the measures I proposed, any prominent part was omitted by the legislature, it has invariably happened that on subsequent experience, impartial persons have independently represented the necessity of its being restored; & that whenever any of those measures has been even imperfectly adopted, a more extensive application of it has been subsequently demanded, & in many instances, made.
(3) restricted by charges, which might be reduced to less than half their Edition: current; Page: [595] amount not only without loss, but with positive benefit to the shareholders; who would also be gainers by reducing the rates for conveyances of goods, to the immense advantage of the metropolis & the great towns by cheapening &c.
(4) by persons carefully selected for the task, before introducing bills on important subjects into Parliament
(5) recommended such previous enquiry as a necessary preparation for measures of Parliamentary Reform.
(6) Until this evil shall be cured discrimination is in my opinion necessary in extending the elective franchise.
(7) These, however, if I were elected, I should consider it my duty to examine, whenever my duty to my constituents & to the country required that I should possess a knowledge of them.
I have just returned from Avignon2 and have found your notes waiting for me. I hasten to return the supplementary matter of your paper—the detention of which I much regret as this being apparently the original manuscript, you may have been prevented from sending it to the press. The matter is all telling and useful. But the short paper 1A3 would I think require more working out to produce its proper effect. The objection that will be made to paper B is, that you select the best cases of the working of nomination and the worst of popular election, and that nomination very seldom gave the particular good results you depict—scarcely oftener than a good representative system would. Still, there is a point to be made though it is not so exactly germane to your immediate purpose—enquiry by a commission—as paper A is. By the way did Bristol reject Romilly?4 Are you not thinking of its rejection of Burke?5
I am glad you coincide with so much of the pamphlet.6
A mon retour d'une absence, j'ai trouvé votre billet du 7 février. Je suis très flatté que vous ayez eu même la pensée de traduire mon petit livre.2 Rien ne pourrait lui être plus avantageux que d'être traduit par une plume comme la vôtre; et rien ne saurait m'agréer davantage, pourvu toutefois qu'après l'avoir lu tout entier, vous persistiez dans votre désir. Car il est certain que nous représentons, vous et moi, en quelque sorte, deux systèmes opposés, et je trouverais très naturel que vous pussiez regarder mon ouvrage comme à tout prendre, plus nuisible qu'utile. Il est vrai que comme nous possédons chacun la philosophie de nos opinions respectives, nous sommes, mieux que beaucoup d'autres adversaires, faits pour nous entendre.
Je suis, Monsieur, avec la plus haute considération
On returning from an absence2 I find your note. It is a great encouragement to me that you agree so fully with me on the various points touched on in the pamphlet.3 The idea of combining double voting (élection à deux degrés) for the less educated with direct voting for those of higher qualifications is well worth considering as a mode of making the distinction in a manner probably less obnoxious to the "opinion démocratique" than the plural voting which I proposed not as an immediately practical measure but as a standard of theoretic excellence. I have however had a complete adhesion to it by one Chartist leader of some weight.4Edition: current; Page: [597]
Have you happened to see Hare's book on Representation.5 I have not been so delighted with any political treatise for many years.
There is now no longer any need for reserve respecting the Liberty,2 as it has received almost all the notices from the newspapers and weekly periodicals which it is likely to have.3 There has been an amount of response to it far beyond what I expected.
I was very much pleased with your oration on Owen.4
I wish that in quoting from some paper a recommendation for taking all taxes off "industry" and laying them all on "realized property" you had taken occasion to protest against the iniquity of the proposal—which I have shewn very fully in my Pol. Economy.5 Why should those who save, pay all the taxes for those who have spent all they got? A necessary consequence too would be that those who will not consent to pay any part of the taxes must be willing to renounce all control by their votes over the levying and expending of them, otherwise it would be exactly as if the poor rates were voted and expended by the paupers. There would be no limit to the taxes they would exact from other people for their own emolument or pleasure. A heavy tax on inherited property I do not object to.
I am glad you agree with me about plural voting.6
On returning from Avignon2 I find your note. I am grateful for the sympathy it expresses and only wish that you had known her who is gone sufficiently to know what a feeble and inadequate expression that dedication3 gives of what she was. While she lived, she never sought to be known beyond her small circle of intimates—but now it seems perfectly shocking that the world should be utterly unaware of the treasure it has lost.
I am glad that you are so usefully and interestingly occupied in writing for your country and I shall be much pleased to read the article you mention.4 I am aware that my little book5 is, generally speaking, as little needed in Germany as it is much here. Citizenship and political activity are what Germany most wants, and I trust is again in the road towards acquiring. I am
Having been absent from home2 it is only within the last few days that I have had an opportunity of reading and studying your book3—which I have done with no ordinary feelings. You appear to me to have exactly, and for the first time, solved the difficulty of popular representation; and by doing so, to Edition: current; Page: [599] have raised up the cloud of gloom and uncertainty which hung over the futurity of representative government and therefore of civilization. That you are right in theory I never could have doubted, and as to practice, having begun with a great natural distrust of what seemed a very complicated set of arrangements, I ended by being convinced that the plan is workable, and effectually guarded or guardable against fraud. In the details I have as yet found only one point which, it seems to me, might be improved, and that is so minor a one as hardly to be worth mentioning. You propose that (assuming the quota to be 2000) the first 2000 votes a candidate obtains at the place for which he stands, should be counted for his return, and his name struck out of all subsequent voting papers. Should it not be the last 2000 rather than the first? Otherwise there is a premium on hanging back from the poll; the later votes having more power than the earlier ones, inasmuch as after the attainment of their first object, their second votes also are counted.
Excuse my offering this very small criticism on a scheme for which I shall henceforth be a zealous apostle.4 I am as sanguine as you are yourself respecting the moral and political effects of it, which would far transcend anything that is apparent at first sight. A thing so complete will not however be attained at one step, and it is therefore mortifying that the principle of representation of minorities is not in some way recognized (however imperfectly it might be realized) by the ministerial Reform Bill.
Allow me to add that while I so entirely concur both in the principles of your book and in its practical proposals, I have also the good fortune to agree with most even of your incidental remarks on things in general. I am
Allow me to thank you for your very interesting treatise2 which, having been absent, I have only just had an opportunity of reading. We agree to a Edition: current; Page: [600] considerable extent in our practical views, particularly in the important point (almost new I think in the theory of representation) that the proper safeguard against the undue preponderance of a class more numerous than all others taken together, is not the exclusion of anybody, but the graduation of influence proportionally to just claims. Between some influence and more influence, the ratio is finite and appreciable, but between some and none at all it is mathematically infinite. No one could without voluntary degradation admit that he ought to be counted for nothing, though every reasonable person is eager to admit that there are persons entitled to be counted for more than himself.
But while we agree thus far we differ very much on other points. I would not give any one a plurality of votes in consequence of any merely social superiority, and your general principle of making the representative assembly an exact reflection of existing inequalities of weight and position seems to me liable to very strong objections, with which as I shall probably write something on the matter, I will not trouble you here.
I would also include women in the ultimate universal suffrage that you contemplate—which as far as I can collect from a note in your book, you would not do. I think your principles break down altogether if you allow of any exception among persons sui juris. I am
Having been absent2 I only received your kind and sympathizing note a few days ago, and have not until now had time or heart to write to you in acknowledgment of it. I feel a tie between myself and every one who knowing Edition: current; Page: [601] even a little of her, valued and appreciated her to the extent of their opportunities. I do not speak from feeling but from long standing and sober conviction in saying that when she died this country lost the greatest mind it contained. You cannot know what she was privately, but you, more than most men can sympathize in the nobleness of her public objects, which never stopped short of perfect distributive justice as the final aim, implying therefore a state of society entirely communist in practice and spirit, whether also in institutions or not. This entire faith in the ultimate possibilities of human nature was drawn from her own glorious character, while her keen perception of present difficulties and obstacles was derived from her wonderful practical discernment, and comprehension of life. I am
Since my return from Avignon a week ago, I have had so many things to attend to that I have not, till now, had time to express to you how deeply interested I feel in your account of your health. I suppose the medicine they gave you to stop hemorrhage was sugar of lead, the most effectual of styptics but which always disorders the stomach dreadfully. That effect however will go off, if only the bleeding does not return. It is consolatory that the pulmonary disease did not appear on examination to have advanced. When organic disease exists, hemorrhage may at any time shew itself without marking any fresh advance of the malady.
I recognized your accustomed kind attention in sending the Daily News and the Athenaeum. The D. N. had on last Monday week an attack on the pamphlet,2 not at all in harmony with the previous article.3Edition: current; Page: [602]
I have not yet been able to look at the little book of your Quaker friend.4
Hickson has probably told you that I hope to be able to walk across to Fairseat before I leave England.
I inclose directions for taking the Bromide of Potassium. I should think the two cases somewhat similar, as the temporary paralysis was caused in my wife's case by an injury to the spine, suffered in a carriage.2 It is right to say that she took iodine at the same time, according to the prescription I send. But the iodine did not apparently do any good until she added the bromine to it.
Thanks for your musical present. It is a great advantage to you as it is to me, and very useful under depression, to be interested in a great variety of things. I will refer again to "Time and Faith"3 on the subject of M. Aurelius,4 and should be very happy if so great a character could be exculpated. But, being the inferior of the two, I fear he must be held responsible even for Verus.
I fully expected, both that you would go heartily with me in the main object of the little book on Liberty, and also that you would think it does not go far enough. Any difference that there can be between us in the matter can only, however, be on points of detail, not of principle. There are none of your writings which I admire more than your "Over-Legislation".2
I see I omitted to send you a pamphlet I have published on Parliamentary Reform.3 I send it by this post. But I recommend to you, as much better than it (if not already known to you) the book by Hare the Charity Commissioner on "the election of representatives".4 I am much mistaken if you will not recognize in it a combination of theoretic wisdom and practical sagacity very rarely found in any writings on such subjects.
A mon retour d'une absence j'ai trouvé votre bonne et affectueuse lettre. J'y reconnais une sincérité de sympathie qui toujours soulage un peu le malheur dont elle ne console point. Je voudrais pouvoir de quelque façon que se soit, vous rendre ce bien. Si j'avais pu vous faire connaître celle qui n'est plus, il me semble que je vous aurais plus que payé de tout bienfait et de toute amitié qu'il eût été possible de recevoir. Elle était, non seulement le coeur le Edition: current; Page: [604] plus aimant et l'âme la plus élevée, mais aussi l'esprit le plus profond et le jugement le plus infaillible qu'il m'a été donné de connaître. Tout ce qu'on trouve de meilleur dans mes écrits n'est que la plus pâle réflexion de ses lumières et de sa grande âme—et l'on s'en apercevra bien, je le crains, dans ce qui me reste à faire, malgré tous mes efforts pour me diriger toujours par son souvenir.
Vous me demandez comment cette catastrophe est arrivée. Nous étions en route pour le midi. Nous voulions passer l'hiver à Hyères et le printemps en Italie, peutêtre à Florence. Quoique délicate, elle se portait bien lors de notre départ, mais la fatigue du voyage ou quelque cause inconnue a déterminé à Avignon une attaque de poitrine qui quoique sérieuse, ne sembla dangereuse que le jour même qui fut le dernier de sa vie. Ainsi l'affranchissement que j'avais désiré, et dont je me promettais tant de bien pour nous deux, est devenu le malheur de ma vie—et c'est peu de chose encore, car Dieu sait que j'aurais racheté de tout mon bonheur sa simple existence même éloignée de moi. Il me semble que j'aurais pu tout supporter excepté qu'elle cessât d'être.
J'ai acheté une petite maison près de son tombeau, et je vous engage lorsque vous m'écrirez d'ici à une année, d'adresser vos lettres à Saint-Véran près Avignon, Vaucluse. Si je n'y suis pas, vos lettres m'arriveront plus vite que si vous les adressiez ici.
Algernon Taylor vous remercie de votre souvenir et vous présente ses respects.
The reason why I think that voting papers would facilitate bribery and intimidation is, that the person who can influence a voter could actually stand by him and see him sign the paper.2 In regard to bribery, a great additional motive would be created by the fact that the briber need no longer trust the bribee. He could have ocular demonstration that the voter fulfilled his bargain. Edition: current; Page: [605] In these respects the experience of the Poor Law elections is not much to the point, as there is comparatively little inducement either to bribe or intimidate at those elections.
Craik3 is entirely wrong in his arithmetic. If anything is as plain as that 2 + 2 = 4, it is that with three persons to be elected, and cumulative voting, it would require a third plus one of the electors to be sure of returning one member. Craik's error is in supposing that while the one third concentrate all their votes on one candidate the two thirds will split theirs among three. Of course they would know better than to do that. They would only divide theirs between two, which would give them exactly the same power of carrying two candidates as the one third would have of carrying one. If either the two thirds or the one third aimed at more than they could do, while the other party did not, they would fail of doing the whole of what they could do. But this liability would be common to both sides, & to both in the same degree.
I am not disposed to republish Gaultier's book4 myself, but I should be very ready to give anybody a recommendation who would do it.
I very much hope you will read Hare5 and help to make the book known.
Your note partakes of the comprehensive and thoughtful character of your book. I may well be pleased when, besides approving my suggestion,2 you furnish me with arguments for it which I had not myself thought of. Your own third course, however, is the real thing; and though I agree with you that in the present stage your main idea should not be encumbered with minutiae which would make it less easily intelligible, this and all similar detailed improvements should be kept in reserve, to be brought out when the time actually comes for legislating on your principles. For the quality in your plan which will contribute most to make it take a strong hold of every Edition: current; Page: [606] competent mind which can be got to look into it, is precisely the finished perfection of adaptation of which it is susceptible. It is the only representative mechanism which is capable of fulfilling all the demands of principle. Every other is a mere rough piece of botching compared with it; and this character of the plan stands out so prominently when once it is understood, that it has a fair chance, if sufficiently promulgated, of being widely and enthusiastically taken up by the élite of the nation.
I am glad that you like the Liberty so much & agree with so many of the heresies of the Reform pamphlet. With regard to the plural voting, one must not withhold one's opinion as to what is right in principle because one does not see one's way to getting it fully acted on. The right principle, put into a legislator's head, may decide his judgment on some important practical question involving the same principle. It is a great point also to meet the claims of mere numbers with something which appeals to the reason & sense of justice of the numbers themselves, which no other mode of inequality of political rights does. One must never suppose what is good in itself to be visionary because it may be far off. That this is not really visionary is illustrated by the fact that Holyoake2 has already taken it up warmly & in the most unqualified form. We must remember too that the numerical majority are not the politically strongest force yet. The point to be decided is, how much power is to be yielded to them; & justice always affords the best basis for a compromise, which even if only temporary may be eminently useful.
Pray read Hare.3 His plan supersedes all that I or anyone else has said about grouping of boroughs representation of minorities &c by realizing all these ends through a self acting machinery in a degree of perfection almost ideal.
I am going to write to Reeve,4 & will inform you immediately of his answer.
I am obliged to Mr Herzen2 for his writings, and shall have pleasure in reading them. But I have not yet seen any one, except from necessity; and as I am going abroad very shortly, for an absence of some duration, there would be little use in commencing an acquaintance which I should not be able, for the present, to prosecute. After my return, I shall be happy to see Mr Herzen, if he should then wish it, and still more (I hope I need not say) yourself.
I agree with you that now is the first time (perhaps also the last) when a parliamentary reform might have a chance of being decided by reason, and not by the tug of hostile parties, each holding fast not by what it ought, but by what it can. It is important therefore that the opportunity should not be lost.
Respecting the ballot2—it is quite possible to make the secrecy of the act of voting quite independent of the voter's will; so that he shall be unable to make known his vote, in any other way than by pledging his veracity to it. If, however, the operation of the ballot were such as you consider probable, there would still be the great evil done of a recognition by the State that electors may vote as they please, and are not accountable for their vote as a moral act. This would not be the intention; but that it would be the popular Edition: current; Page: [608] interpretation of the ballot I feel sure. You must have observed that of late the most popular advocates of the ballot have actually rested its justification on the avowed doctrine that the suffrage is a right and not a trust; a doctrine which, even if there were no non-electors, would be enough to corrupt and destroy the purest democracy conceivable. There will never be honest or self-restraining government unless each individual participant feels himself a trustee for all his fellow citizens and for posterity. Certainly no Athenian voter thought otherwise.
Have you seen Hare's book on Representation?3 If not, let me beg you to read it. I think it both a monument of intellect, and of inestimable practical importance at the present moment. His suggestions appear to me the real basis of a reconciliation between Radicalism and Conservatism. Had I seen his book before writing my pamphlet I should have made it very different.
I am truly sorry that you have been so unwell, and that there is less chance than there seemed to be of your obtaining a position compatible with your pursuits.2 I cannot but think, however, that there must be some posts (though fewer than formerly) which would suit your purpose. The difficulty is to know which they are, and to catch them before they are promised.
I did not propose to give votes at present to all who can pass my elementary test—unless plural votes were given to the higher grades of education in all classes. Neither do I propose an educational test as in itself perfect, but as being better than a property test. If education is not a complete guarantee against being swayed by class interests, often ill understood, property is still less so. What you say of the shoemakers3 only shews, at worst, that they are Edition: current; Page: [609] no better than the shipowners—and probably in this instance less ignorant; for the shoemakers, most likely, suffer more real inconvenience from the sewing machines, than the shipowners from foreign competition.
I think your principle of attaching direct taxation to representation,4 a very important one. If the taxes were to be spent under the control of those who fancy they do not pay them, they would think they could never lay on too much, or spend it too lavishly. I am afraid however I should come under the same ban with them in the two instances you give of improper expenditure—for I cannot help thinking that public gardens should be the property of the town, in order that they may be free to all without payment: and though I do not think so of public baths, yet in order to foster the taste for them, and render them ultimately a profitable private speculation, I should not object to their being experimentally provided by public authority. These cases exemplify the difference there is between us in degree, though I think not in principle, respecting the limits of government interference.
I have read your two pamphlets,2 and I like much both their spirit and most of the things you say. I should have been glad however to have had your opinion, grounded on observation, as to whether the introduction of new machinery does not often temporarily, and even for some considerable time, diminish the employment for labour. If so, the operatives have reason to complain, not of machinery, but of the State, for not doing something to help them. I fear also that so much cannot be done for the condition of the Edition: current; Page: [610] poorer classes by reduction of taxation as you seem to think there is room for—especially when there is a treacherous despot just across the Channel watching his opportunity.
I have desired my publisher to send you a copy of a book of mine,3 of which I request your acceptance. In it you will find my opinions on both the subjects referred to in your note. I am
Votre belle et touchante lettre m'a fait du bien. Je vous honore d'avoir su voir, au moins en partie, dans mes écrits, ce que je dois à un enseignement et à une collaboration dont le bonheur n'existe plus maintenant qu'en souvenir.2 Cependant vous risquez toujours de lui attribuer trop peu de tout ce que vous louez en moi. Nous n'étions pas, comme on pourrait le croire, deux esprits différents mais égaux, dont l'un aurait apporté autant que l'autre au fonds commun—comme par exemple l'élévation des idées serait dûe surtout à l'un, la justesse des appréciations pratiques à l'autre. Il n'en était point ainsi. Elle me dépassait également aux deux égards. Sa hauteur atteignait le ciel, tout en restant ferme sur la terre. Elle était complète sans moi, tandis que moi je suis très incomplet sans elle. Ce qui m'appartenait dans l'oeuvre commune n'était guère qu'un certain talent de rédaction et d'interprétation, qui encore ne vaut quelque chose que pour les lettrés et pour les savants, car elle trouvait toujours beaucoup mieux que moi le chemin de l'esprit et du coeur de la simple humanité.
Passons maintenant aux affaires de l'Italie. Je ne m'étonne point de l'illusion où semble être pour le moment chez vous l'esprit national. Je crains pourtant qu'elle ne puisse devenir très fatale. Soyez bien persuadé que le plus dangereux ennemi qu'ait en ce moment l'avenir de l'humanité c'est celui dont vous invoquez l'appui.3 Je comprendrais qu'à tel époque donné, on mît Edition: current; Page: [611] la nationalité avant la liberté, je pourrais même le pardonner, parceque la liberté a souvent besoin de la nationalité pour exister. Mais comment peut-on croire que la nationalité Italienne puisse exister avec cet homme?4 A-t-elle existé sous son oncle?5 Pense-t-on que ce soit par un sentiment généreux qu'il veut faire la guerre à l'Autriche sous prétexte de l'Italie?6 Est-ce une nationalité que d'être dans la dépendance servile d'un despote étranger? Sait-il même ce que c'est que la foi, que l'honneur, que le respect de la parole donnée? La France, même libre, veut beaucoup trop imposer son joug aux autres peuples; et son maître actuel, en flattant ce défaut national, désire faire usage des Français pour asservir les Italiens afin de les tenir tous deux subjugués les uns par les autres, tout comme en use l'Autriche à l'égard des divers peuples qu'elle domine. C'est navrant pour un ami de la liberté d'être forcé de souhaiter le succès même de l'Autriche contre une puissance plus retrograde encore et plus malfaisante qu'elle. Je ne voudrais pourtant pas que l'Angleterre prêtât main-forte à l'Autriche attaquée, à moins d'une renonciation préalable à l'Italie. Je ne voudrais jusque-là qu'une médiation, et une neutralité armée. Mais si la guerre a lieu, je ne pense pas que l'Angleterre s'arrête longtemps à ce point.7 Un peuple n'a jamais qu'une idée à la fois, et le nôtre, je le crains, cesserait bientôt de sympathiser avec le patriotisme Italien s'il se présentait comme l'appui du tyran perfide de la France. Ce que veut cet homme est par là même mauvais, car il ne veut que l'accroissement et l'affermissement de son pouvoir, et il n'y a pas de plus grand mal sur la terre.
Je serai charmé de voir votre ouvrage sur Savonarola8 et je le serais encore plus de vous voir. Quoique probablement nous ne retournerons pas en Angleterre sans passer par Florence, je ne crois pas que ce soit avant le printemps de l'année prochaine. Mais pendant une partie de ce temps nous ne serons pas plus loin qu'Avignon: nous y serons même à quelques jours d'ici, pour y séjourner quelque temps, et nous y serons aussi dans l'automne. Je ne pourrai Edition: current; Page: [612] pas vous y offrir l'hospitalité, car la maisonette suffit à peine pour nous loger: mais à cela près, si vous pouviez venir passer quelque temps avec nous en famille avant l'hiver, nous pourrions causer sur bien des choses, et parcourir ensemble ce pays classique pour tout Italien.
I have long ceased to regard speeches in Parliament2 as meaning anything except that the speaker has not made up his mind to vote next day for the thing he attacks. The position of a Member of Parliament must be very corrupting, for it seems to divest people of all concern for the day after tomorrow. People are not afraid to flétrir by a passing word, something that they have never once thought about—provided there does not seem to be at the time any strong party for it among their own friends. This is what is called being practical.
Your plan, if kept before the public, will be adopted as soon as any really large concession of the suffrage has to be made to the working classes—but all parties at present think they can get off, this time, without that; so they do not like to delay and incumber their measure with provisions which are not understood.3
Does Gladstone4 know of your book? I should think him, of all prominent public men, the likeliest to appreciate it.
I have been working at propagandism since I last wrote to you, and have called the attention of various people to your plan who are sure to talk about Edition: current; Page: [613] it when they understand it.5 I have also an article in the forthcoming Fraser,6 great part of which is on your book. A copy shall be sent to you. You will see that I have ventured to differ from you about educational suffrage, which I prefer to any property test, and which indeed I think the necessary accompaniment and supplement of your plan.
Further consideration of the point I wrote to you about before,7 has made me think your last solution of it a very important element in the plan. In the case of those popular favorites who would receive many thousand votes, a considerable number would probably be given for them and them only. Now every one of these which is not counted for the candidate's return, corresponds to one elector unrepresented. The same result will often, though not so often,8 happen in the case of those who put only one or two additional names on their list. So that if a voter with a long list is counted in preference to one with a short list, there is a double evil: one is perhaps disfranchised while the country loses the benefit of the other's more careful consideration.
As you do not mind the trouble of writing to me, and as I should not like to lose any letter from you, let me mention that after ten days or so my address will be Saint-Véran, près Avignon, Vaucluse, France.9 I hope to hear from you, especially if there is anything to be done which I can do. I shall take your book with me, and as far as writing is concerned, can do as much anywhere else as here.
. . . . The book2 has had much more success, and has made a greater impression, than I had the smallest expectation of.—We shall be at Avignon for some time. . . . I hope to hear from you sometimes at that place, as I am very desirous to know, how your various literary projects go on. . . .
Since your first note I have been in daily expectation of hearing that all was over.
He2 was, I think, without exception the most unselfish person, of the male sex, whom I have ever known intimately enough to be able to judge. The only thing which can at all alleviate our regret is that his health had long been too much broken to make life any enjoyment to him.
I would attend the funeral, at whatever inconvenience, if any mark were necessary of my respect and affection for his memory. But I am in the midst of printing against time (a selection from my review articles)3 and am hurrying the printer in order not to delay my departure from England. I hope to start within ten days, and I fear therefore I shall be unable to make out my projected visit to Fairseat.
My address will for some time be Saint-Véran, près Avignon, Vaucluse, France, where I shall be glad to hear from you, and shall be much interested in knowing whether the bromine experiment succeeds.4
I wrote today to Mr. W. Hickson explaining to him my reasons for preferring not to attend the funeral;2 but as you may perhaps desire to hear from me before you leave town, I write again merely to say that much as I should Edition: current; Page: [615] wish in any way to shew the great regard I felt for my friend, yet in the present circumstances I would rather not attend.
Your approbation of the 'Liberty'gives me much pleasure, and the last sentence of your letter has caused me a still deeper feeling. I did not for a moment think of doing any good by those few words of preface, but only of expressing some insignificant fraction of what I feel to the noblest and wisest being I have known. But I could do nothing more useful with the rest of my life than devote it to making the world know and understand what she was, if it were possible to do it.
With regard to your impediments at the College:2 Mr Davies3 I know nothing of. Maurice I do know, and respect highly.4 I should have sent him a copy of the book, if I had not thought that my doing so might appear a sort of bravado: for though I was persuaded that he would see some good in it, and though I know that he has the kindest feelings towards me personally, I was quite prepared to find that it contained much which he would think it his duty to discourage.
I had already read Mr Huber's papers in the Reasoner with great satisfaction.5
I have read your letter with much pleasure, and entirely agree with it. I shall be very glad to receive your observations on any part of my Political Economy2 and there will be time enough for you to prepare them at leisure, as I am going abroad immediately probably for a year or more; and as you might lose all your trouble by the miscarriage of a letter, I would suggest your withholding your remarks until my return.
Many thanks for your letter. I should think the difficulty you had in obtaining a publisher was owing to the same cause which you refer to in the case of Mr Hare, the scientific apparatus of your treatise. Probably something of the same kind has stood in your way with Reeve.2 The English public do not like to see even their own conclusions rested upon arguments which they are conscious that they themselves could never have used. You do not at all exaggerate the English dislike of theory, and of any political suggestion which is at all out of the common way. But this dislike is always greatest at first, and though a Minister may be obliged to bow to it, it is a great mistake in any one else to humour it. Every repetition and inculcation of a really good doctrine or proposal, does a little towards raising it from the class of impracticable into that of practicable things. The errors of the public owe half their mischievous power to people who do not participate in the errors, but who think it practical to summarily reject everything that is opposed to them. Therefore, when, as in the case of Hare's plan, there is really no obstacle to Edition: current; Page: [617] its adoption but the novelty of the idea, we should always, I think, talk and write about it as if that were no obstacle at all.
I hope you may yet find some channel for saying all you would wish to say in reply to me.3 If you do, you could not oblige me more than by telling me where it is to be found. I shall be out of England for some time, but a letter addressed Saint-Véran près Avignon, Vaucluse France, will find me either immediately or in no very long time.
My address for some time will be, Saint-Véran près Avignon, Vaucluse, France, where I shall be happy to hear from you any time when you are disposed to write.
I have sent your letter to Mr Hare.2 It will please and encourage him, as it well may.
His plan would be the most effectual of all antidotes to the fatal habit of Edition: current; Page: [618] mind which as you say, is creeping over the non-democratic portion of all the large constituencies.3
I dare say the first attempt to introduce representation of minorities will be made in some such manner as you suggest.4 But this will only be owing to the timidity of our statesmen—for the whole, in this case, is so much more defensible than any part, that it would probably be quite as easy to get it adopted in totality as partially.
I am just leaving England for the Continent.
Many thanks for your letter. You have made a good move in endeavouring to get the subject brought before the Social Science Association.2 The meetings of that body are of considerable use in getting an audience for new views of things practical. If Lord Brougham3 would take up your plan he would do a great service. Lord Lyndhurst's4 approbation is valuable. Parker5 has sent me an article cut from an Edinburgh paper (the Evening Courant)6 containing Edition: current; Page: [619] an intelligent appreciation of the plan, though the writer knew it only from the article in Fraser.7
I do not see how we can now avoid the terrible calamity of war.8 If we allow Austria to be crushed between Russia and France, which left to herself she certainly will be, the fate of England is sealed, for the two together will be a match for her at sea, and vastly superior on land. It is quite possible that Europe may be divided between two great military despotisms, and freedom driven to take refuge in America and Australia. I am
I received your letter2 when on the point of leaving England, and I put off answering it till our arrival here. I have been further delayed by the troubles and interruptions incident to getting into a new place, but still more by the painfulness of writing on the only subject on which I should care to write, or doubtless you to hear.
Though she could not be to anyone else, even if not separated by half the circumference of the globe, all that she was to us, her immediate family, it must make a blank in any life to lose one whose equal we may be perfectly sure that we shall not live long enough ever to see again.
To us who have known what it is to be with her and to belong to her, this silly phantasmagoria of human life devoid of her, would be utterly meaningless and unendurably wearisome, were there not still some things to do in it which she wished done, and some public and other objects which she cared for, and in which therefore it is still possible to keep up some degree of interest. I have been publishing some of her opinions, and I hope to employ what remains to me of life (if I am able to retain my health) in continuing to work for them, and to spread them, though with sadly diminished powers Edition: current; Page: [620] now that I no longer have her to prompt and guide me. I thank you for your wish that we should sometimes correspond. I should be glad to do so, as I feel a tie between myself and everyone who had any sincere feeling of regard for her. Up to next spring it will be best to address any letter to this place, as though we shall not be always here, we do not intend to be in England before that time at soonest. I believe I told you that we have bought a small house and a little bit of ground here, near the place where she lies.
Arthur Hardy Esq.
It gave me pleasure to hear from you again, and still more to learn that you propose writing something in further development and defence of the plan. The assertion that you propose to abolish the representation of localities might well astonish any one who had not noticed the extraordinary mistakes made by people who write critical notices of a book after one hasty reading. If they have taken in the main idea, it is as much as they have done even in very favorable cases; and if the main idea is new to them, it is all that their mind will hold, and they generally assume that it is advanced without any qualifications and restrictions, though the book may be full of them. This seems to be one of the conditions of daily writing. It is a fact that your book lays so great a stress upon the representation of localities, that I was struck and almost surprised by the great pains you took not only to prevent any of the advantages of local representation from being lost, but to give them an unexampled extension, since you allow any locality or corporate body which has a definable existence to have a member of its own, if it chooses to elect one by its local majority.
The number and population of the unrepresented towns, as stated in your letter, surprised me.
I inclose a letter2 I have received on the subject of your plan, which as you Edition: current; Page: [621] think of writing further on it, you may like to see. The only difficulty stated by the writer is easily met. I am
. . . . I am rather anxious to hear from you, not knowing whether you have received the sheets of the little book,2 and, in case you have, whether you still have any idea of translating it. I should much prefer you to any other translator who is likely to offer, but I have always thought it probable that you might have good reasons against undertaking it, and that some other part of Germany might be more suitable for bringing the book before the German public. In addition to an offer made through Messrs. Parker3 I have lately received one under the signature of Eduard John,4 Justizrath at Marienwerder . . . who has sent me a portion of a translation actually executed; but as it is in the German manuscript character, which I do not read fluently, I am not at present able to judge of its merits. . . . I could write much about politics, but think it more prudent to wait for some better opportunity; though I certainly do not side with France in this miserable war,5 which I condemn as strongly as any Austrian can. . . .
I got here quite prosperously, except that by a blunder not common with me, I first got to Arles instead, & had to wait some time for a train to get back, during which I botanized & did not get here till 7. I however strolled about a good deal both before & after tea & cutlets. Today I Edition: current; Page: [622] began my walk at half past eight & was fairly driven in at ¼ past 2 by the load of plants. It has taken me till now (½ past 4) to determine them, so I shall hardly have time for another walk before the table d'hôte which is unluckily at 6. I am in a very pleasant groundfloor room opening on a shady court yard with large trees, or garden as they call it, thanks to which I here also hear the nightingale in bed. I am very well and not at all tired. This place much exceeds my recollections & expectations, & I now think you would like to see it. To me it is very strange, having seen it twice before2 and been familiar with it in winter, to see it now in the full blaze of summer, with a richness and verdure I did not think it capable of—but cultivation has gained immensely on the garrigues since my time. I think it a delightful place, and should have felt it delightful once. Now, the contrast with the change in my own life the reverse way, deepens the melancholy which is the groundplan of life and is always in the depths whatever else may be on the surface. But I would not wish it otherwise and would rather seek than avoid any place or circumstance that makes it more so.—My plans remain the same, except that as the weather seems unsettled and may be rainy in the mountains I may possibly stay a day longer here than I intended; but I do not think I shall do so. The weather today is exquisite—the most perfect English summer day, with delicious flying clouds & breeze—but there are storms in the air—it has evidently rained much here & I think you had a storm of rain yesterday afternoon. Tomorrow I shall go down to the sea & next day climb St Loup. If I stay longer I will write again from here. Do not, dear, write here more than once. I will now go & put this in the post, & then see if the best chemist here has got me the citrate he said he would if he could find it in Montpellier.
I have only just got your letter as yesterday morning they denied having one and I was so late returning from my walk (after 7) that the office was Edition: current; Page: [623] shut. Thanks for it dear, it was a great pleasure. If I have had a fair specimen of Montpellier in the last week in May, the climate must be exquisite—to be out all day for several days in that season & never have to think, even, of heat. On Friday I was out from ½ to 9 till between 5 & 6, by the sea, in the most delightful weather, with now & then a few drops of rain towards afternoon—& as for plants, the load of the day before was a joke to them. Yesterday I had marked out for climbing the Pic St Loup, and was out soon after ½ past 8, but after a delightful walk of about twelve miles to the foot of the mountain a succession of thunderstorms came on & though I found shelter, first at a very pretty convent called Notre Dame des Champs, afterwards among sheep & shepherds in a hut, it put a stop to my projects & I had to walk back, mostly through rain, seeing by the way two fine rainbows, one of them when the sun did not shine. So I have the Pic still to climb, which is a reason for staying here today: but a stronger reason is that unless this storm inaugurates a change, the weather must be rainy in the mountains. Not to repeat the walk over the same ground I have engaged a carriage to take me to the neighbourhood of the mountain & bring me back when I am tired. It is a beautiful morning, & if it looks fine towards Le Vigan I shall go there tomorrow, for I hunger & thirst for mountains. Yesterday I was less encumbered with plants but they were all choice ones. I have got the citrate, which the chemist made on purpose for me. This mode of life is doing me a world of good—more than I could possibly hope for in the time, so I would not willingly be forced to give up the mountains for the present. We seem to have had the rare fortune of falling on a wet summer in the driest region of Europe.
I expected that the weather would be bad for Montpellier, from heat, & good for the mountains. I have found it the reverse. It has never been so hot as in any day at Avignon.
Still here! When I got up it rained violently, continued raining all the morning & is only now (1 o'clock) for the first time clearing. There is not time now to go to Le Vigan today, even if it were advisable to go to mountains in such weather. I have been all the morning drying my papers by a fire—the Edition: current; Page: [624] first I have had, but the papers I spread out last night were almost as wet this morning as they were at first. I got to the top of the Pic St Loup, or as they call it here (the country people I mean) the Pied de St Loup, so I got to the head of the saint's foot. The view was very fine, the walk & plants very good. I am now going to see what sort of walk I can get. Tomorrow I will certainly either go to Le Vigan or return home.
Thanks again for your nice letter dear. I was extremely interested by everything in it & only hope M. Pascal's2 news will not prove again a mere put off of the marbrier. Your affectionate
I write a line to save the post and let you know a day sooner that I have arrived here. It is 40 miles from Montpellier & as the only diligence was a night one, I preferred taking a carriage from the hotel. It has been a tolerable day & gives tolerable hopes: though only hopes for the future. The number of days I stay here will depend on the weather & on anything I hear from you. I should think you must have heard from Gurney2 by this time. This seems a beautiful place though a most primitive French town & inn. I enquired for your letter & received it immediately on arriving.
only one word to say that I have taken a place by the diligence to Nîmes for Saturday morning & as I shall arrive there somewhere Edition: current; Page: [625] about 3 or 4 in the afternoon, am sure of a train to take me home tolerably early in the evening. It will be time enough for Benoît to go to the station for my things after I arrive. I shall want nothing but tea, with eggs or not according as I have or have not dined.
As I shall so soon be able to tell you all about this place I will only say that I have climbed today the highest mountain within reach & have been out from ½ past 8 to past 7. I had a fine day & saw everything to perfection.
I received your second letter to this place—third altogether—yesterday morning. Thanks dear for all of them.
I sincerely condole with you on the unhappy events2 which have caused you so much pain and disturbance of mind. The delay in answering my letter has occasioned no inconvenience, and since you are willing to translate the little book,3 or rather have by this time actually done so, I desire nothing better than to leave it in your hands and certainly should not think of giving the preference to any other translator.4 I have no objection to the omission of any part or the whole of the note to which you refer, nor of the sentence on page 9,5 though in the latter case I have not been able to discover what there is which renders it more unsuitable for publication than all the rest of the chapter. Perhaps some words in it may be understood as a declaration against kingly government, but nothing of the sort was intended, nor did it occur to me that anyone could think so. The only opinion expressed or implied is in favour of free political institutions, and even that is but incidental. But I do not think the retention of the sentence of any importance. . . .
I was very glad to hear from you again, and particularly so to hear that you are going to have the opportunity of a public discussion at the Social Science meeting.2 What is wanted is to get the subject much written about and talked of; previously to which the theory that two and two make four was no doubt regarded as a paradox, and such people as Disraeli3 got up in public places and attacked their political opponents for maintaining it. How I should have liked to have been there to answer him on the spot. But there was nobody to do it. I like your idea of writing a paper and sending it to the members of the Association, but I am rather doubtful about attaching signatures to it. That foolish Memorial to Lord Palmerston4 has thrown a wet blanket on the idea. I suppose you will give brief and pungent answers to the popular objections against the plan, which are only expressions, in varied phrase, of the popular inability to understand it. Where there is anything definite in the objections, the truth is generally the reverse of what is asserted. For instance, it is supposed that the plan would enable minorities to govern; whereas the fact is that now a minority very often governs (by being the majority of a majority) while under your plan a minority never could by possibility do so. It is the only plan which ensures government by the majority.
I see no prospect of anything but mischief from the change of ministry.5 Its effect on foreign affairs will be bad, and dangerously so, while reform will not be benefitted.6 The new cabinet will never be able to agree on anything Edition: current; Page: [627] but the well worn useless shibboleths of Whig mitigated democracy, and besides they will be unwilling to propose anything new from the certainty that the Tories would oppose it, would by misrepresentation rouse vulgar prejudices against it, and finally throw it out in the Lords. The Liberals, by refusing to take the bill of the late government as the foundation for theirs, have given redoubled force to the mischievous custom almost universal in Parliament, that whatever one party brings forward, the other is sure to oppose7—whereby the enemies of change, even if very far from being a majority, are able to combine with the opponents and defeat the proposals of either. All parties seem to have joined in working the vices and weak points of popular representation for their miserably low selfish ends, instead of uniting to free representative institutions from the mischief and discredit of them.
I intend to pass the greater part of the summer among the Pyrenees, during which time I shall have no settled address but my publisher Mr Parker will be able to tell you where to direct to me for the time being. I am Dear Sir
Je ne vais pas renouveler notre discussion sur les affaires politiques. S'il dépendait de moi, je ne voudrais pas maintenant vous décourager. Le sort est jeté, et je souhaite ardemment que l'événement réponde à vos désirs. Seulement tâchez de ne pas mal penser de l'Angleterre à cette occasion,2 et surtout gardez-vous de croire qu'elle ne sympathise pas avec l'Italie. Cette sympathie est tellement forte qu'en ce moment elle suffit pour balancer non seulement la méfiance et la haine que doit inspirer une ambition criminelle, mais encore les motifs les plus graves de sûreté nationale. Songez que l'Autriche est la seule alliée sur laquelle nous aurions pu compter3 (car il n'y a Edition: current; Page: [628] pas de fonds à faire sur la Prusse et l'Allemagne sans l'Autriche) dans le cas très probable et peutêtre prochain où nous aurions à lutter pour notre existence nationale contre la France et la Russie réunies. Dans cette lutte nous n'aurons plus l'Autriche avec nous, d'abord parcequ'elle sera probablement trop affaiblie, ensuite parcequ'elle sera trop offensée de notre neutralité actuelle. Nous aurons, hélas, l'Italie contre nous, car vous serez forcés à suivre dans toutes ses guerres votre prétendu libérateur.4 Ainsi l'ombre d'indépendance dont on vous flatte aura pour résultat que vous aiderez à abattre la seule liberté bien affermie qui existe dans l'ancien Continent.5 Vous nous pardonnerez, j'espère, de n'être pas très enthousiasmés de cette perspective. Si vous pensez sérieusement là dessus, vous verrez que ce danger doit être désormais la principale préoccupation de nos hommes d'état. Assurément tout le parti libéral aurait demandé la guerre contre la France, pendant que nous avons encore des alliés, si était la répugnance que lui inspire l'idée d'appuyer la domination de l'Autriche sur l'Italie.
Je vais maintenant quitter Avignon pour les Pyrénées, où je me propose de passer la saison des grandes chaleurs. Mais je compte revenir à la fin de Septembre, et vous me feriez un plaisir véritable (à moins que les affaires de votre pays n'exigent votre présence) si vous vouliez venir passer ici quelque temps avec nous. Comme je vous l'ai déjà indiqué, la petitesse de notre demeure m'empêche de vous y offrir un logement, mais il y aura un couvert pour vous, et je serai à votre disposition pendant la journée. Si cette lettre vous parvient, veuillez me dire si nous pouvons avoir cette espérance. Ecrivezmoi toujours à Avignon, on saura où envoyer vos lettres.
[Where I think you do me an injustice is in saying that] in publishing letters not written for publication you disregarded the obligation which custom founded on reason has imposed, of omitting what would be offensive Edition: current; Page: [629] to the feelings and perhaps injurious to the moral reputation of individuals . . . and the notion you seem to entertain that everything said or written by any one, which could possibly throw light on the character of the sayer or writer, may, justifiably, be published by a biographer, is one which the world, and those who are higher and better than the world, would, I believe, perfectly unite in condemning.
You entirely mistake the motives which actuated the letter to which you refer2—It was not hurt feeling on a sensitive point but a sense of truth & Justice which I flatter myself wd have been the same in any other case.
Even now I shd feel that I was acting contraryly [sic] to her wishes & character by any partiality or unreasonable sensitiveness, much more therefore at a time when I could afford to regard these things with indifference.
The case being simply that in the exercise of the discretion of an Editor you neglected the usual and indispensable duties which custom (founded on reason) has imposed of omiting [sic] all that might be offensive to the feelings Edition: current; Page: [630] of individuals. Had what was said referred only to myself the publication of it would have been equally unjustifiable. Miss Bronté [sic] was entitled to express any foolish impression that might occur to her in a private letter—It is the Editor who publishes what may give just offence who is alone to blame.
Since writing my note3 this morning, I have received a message from Avignon which makes it necessary for me to return there4 before going to Bagnères de Luchon. Therefore please direct to Avignon instead of Luchon for the present.
I have also received your letter inclosing the accounts, and the very interesting letters from Mr Hare5 and Mr Kingsley,6 to both of whom I will write. I am sorry to say I never received Mr Gladstone's letter,7 to my great regret, but I have written to Bagnères to enquire about it. I should like his second note to be forwarded to Avignon (Saint Véran).
The sale of so large an edition of the Liberty8 in so few months is very satisfactory. You have not told me the number you think it advisable to print of the second edition. If so many as 2000, I think I may fairly ask £200 for the edition.
I do not propose to make any additions or alterations. I am
Your letter of July 11 reached me in the Pyrenees & I was pleased with all the news it contained, except what related to the weakness in Edition: current; Page: [631] your foot.2 I hope however that your Scotch excursion will cure what remains of that & if not you have the resource of hydropathy the benefits of which have been so strikingly exemplified in your case.
The "Liberty" has produced an effect on you which it was never intended to produce if it has made you think that we ought not to attempt to convert the world. I meant nothing of the kind, & hold that we ought to convert all we can. We must be satisfied with keeping alive the sacred fire in a few minds when we are unable to do more—but the notion of an intellectual aristocracy of lumières while the rest of the world remains in darkness fulfils none of my aspirations—& the effect I aim at by the book is, on the contrary, to make the many more accessible to all truth by making them more open minded. But perhaps you were only thinking of the question of religion. On that, certainly I am not anxious to bring over any but really superior intellects & characters to the whole of my own opinions—in the case of all others I would much rather, as things now are, try to improve their religion than to destroy it. My review of you has been in Reeve's hands for several weeks, but I have yet heard nothing from him concerning it.3 I am expecting the proof shortly. The testimonies & notices you tell me of seem to be of the right kind & of good promise for future ones. I hope that the National will follow up its apparent intention of reviewing you.4 Its review of me I saw before I left England.5 I thought the writer's drift was plain enough, but he wrote from an erroneous point of thought. I have seen as yet no review of the "Dissertations" but that in the Saturday Review6 which is so complimentary on the whole, & so very weak where it differs from me that I think it is likely to do more good than harm to the opinions it attacks. I am sorry your former reviewer in the Saturday7 has left off reviewing. The Principal of the Owens College8 feels as many sincere Christians now do, & I hope the "Liberty" will make many more such. It is curious that the most enthusiastic adhesion I have received is from Kingsley who seems to have been very strongly impressed by the book. When he had only seen it at Parker's he sent a message Edition: current; Page: [632] thanking me for the pages on Xtian morality & he has since written to me saying that it made him "a clearer headed & braver minded man upon the spot."9
I suppose this letter will be forwarded to you. I do not know at present where I shall be for a month to come, so please address as at [post?]10 S. V. &c.
I regret that a note which I am informed by Mr Parker that you did me the favour of writing and which was forwarded by him, has never reached me.2
In acknowledging the kind expressions in your second, allow me to say that in venturing to send you my last publication,3 I intended a mark of respect to one of the very few political men whose public conduct appears to me to be invariably conscientious, and in whom desire of the public good is an active principle, instead of at most, a passive restraint. I am
Your note of July 142 reached me in the Pyrenees, where I was seeking for health, not unsuccessfully. I think you have judged rightly in the subject of your paper for the Social Science Association,3 which will, I expect, be very valuable, and I shall be much interested in knowing the impression it makes. The best use that can be made of the Association is to make it a means Edition: current; Page: [633] of gaining adhesions to important practical suggestions fitted for immediate adoption.
I was much gratified by your approbation of the Dissertations. You give them the sort of praise which one thinker most desires to receive from another: and that you should find so much usefulness in them is of itself sufficient to justify my having republished them.
Your letter of July 52 reached me long after its date, while wandering in search of health in the Pyrenees. Allow me, while expressing the great pleasure it gave me, to say that its humility, as it respects yourself, seems to me as much beyond the mark as the deference expressed towards me exceeds anything I have the smallest title to.
Laudari a laudato, or by any other viro,3 has never been very much of an object with me. But to be told by a man who is himself one of the good influences of the age, and whose sincerity I cannot doubt, that anything I have written makes him feel able to be a still better influence, is both an encouragement and a reward—the greatest I can look for, now that a still greater has been taken from me by death.
Far from having read none of your books, I have read them nearly all, and hope to read all of them. I have found in them an earnest endeavour towards many of the objects I myself have at heart; and even when I differed from you it has never been without great interest and sympathy. There are few men between whom and myself any nearer approximation in opinion could be more agreeable to me, and that you should look forward to it gives me a pleasure I could not forbear to express.
Votre lettre du 23 juin m'est parvenue, mais un peu tardivement, et je ne vous ai pas alors fait de réponse, parceque peu après l'avoir écrite, vous avez dû recevoir ma lettre du 22,2 si toutefois l'administration des postes l'a laissé passer. Elle peut dorénavant laisser tout passer, car je n'ai plus besoin de faire aucune observation sur les affaires politiques. Ce serait inutile car aujourd'hui tout le monde en Italie, sauf peutêtre les Lombards,3 doit être du même avis que moi. Moi-même je n'aurais jamais pensé qu'on vous eût sitôt revendus à l'Autriche pour avoir sa neutralité ou peutêtre son alliance contre la Prusse et l'Angleterre: Au moins, si vous lisez nos débats parlementaires, vous savez à présent de quel côté se trouve la véritable sympathie envers l'Italie.
Si vous n'avez pas reçu ma lettre, il est probable que vous ne recevrez pas davantage celle-ci. Cependant je ne m'abstiendrai pas de renouveler l'expression de mon désir que ce soit à votre convenance de venir passer quelque temps ici au mois d'Octobre, en partageant notre vie modeste et tranquille, sauf le logement que je ne puis pas vous offrir, à cause de la petitesse du pied à terre que nous possédons.
Si cette lettre vous parvient, veuillez en accuser réception, afin que je sache à quoi m'en tenir.
I thank you for your paper,2 which I have read with great pleasure. The expressions which your modesty almost apologizes for, seem to me quite Edition: current; Page: [635] indispensable. I should rather have liked them stronger than at all weaker. Unless the pretensions of the plan are stated highly—as they well may be—sufficient attention will not be attracted to it. I only wish you had had other names to refer to in the second paragraph than merely mine, or that the reference in the note to p. 13 had been brought in simultaneously.
Your paper is excellent. If I had a criticism to make, it would be that you suppose the persons to whom it is addressed less ignorant than, I am afraid, they are. You address them as if they were well acquainted with the subject of discussion, but were under the influence of some of the futile objections which have been brought against you. No doubt this is the case with some, but for the greater number I fear that a brief popular explanation of the plan itself and of its purposes is still required. The conclusion of the paper in some measure supplies this, but a good deal is, I think, lost by not beginning with it. However "I speak as to wise men—judge ye what I say."3
Votre lettre du 3 sept. ne m'est parvenue qu'aujourd'hui. Pour parler d'abord de ce qui regarde le grand morceau. L'étude des proportions fait voir que les dimensions que vous indiquez seraient tout à fait insuffisantes. Elles ne dépassent que très peu celles du morceau destiné à être superposé. Je suis donc forcé à abandonner l'idée de prendre tous les morceaux dans le même bloc, et à me contenter par le grand morceau du marbre blanc clair dont nous possédons déjà un bloc à Marseilles.
Mais il reste la question du temps, qui est pour moi de la plus grande importance. J'ai été au désespoir du délai de huit jours qui s'est déjà écoulé. Edition: current; Page: [636] S'il fallait y ajouter encore six semaines, ne seulement tous nos plans pour l'hiver et l'été prochain seraient entièrement bouleversés, mais, ce qui nous affligerait bien davantage, nous serons forcés d'ajourner presqu'à l'année prochaine l'érection du monument. Je vous prie, Messieurs, avec la plus grande instance de tout faire pour abréger le délai autant que possible. Puis qu'il ne s'agit que de trois morceaux au lieu de quatre j'espère qu'ils pourront été rendus à Avignon avant la fin du mois actuel. Cela même ne nous donnerait que tout juste le temps nécessaire.
Après avoir consulté le sculpteur, je vous donne, Messieurs, les dimensions exactes des divers morceaux. La différence de ces dimensions-celles que je vous avais indiquées, est peu de chose, mais elle suffit pour avoir un effet très appréciable sur les proportions.
Vous voudrez bien adresser les marbres à M. Dupré, marbrier à Avignon.
Je vous engage Messieurs à me donner une réponse immédiate, et à mettre dans les travaux toute l'urgence possible.
Je viens de recevoir votre lettre du 6 septembre. Je vous remercie de vos assurances que vous mettrez toute la promptitude possible à préparer et à envoyer les trois morceaux de marbre mais j'espérais que votre lettre m'aurait indiqué de combien le délai dont il était avoir été question dans votre lettre du 3 serait susceptible d'être raccourci. Je vous prie de vouloir bien vous expliquer à ce sujet avec M. Pascal, l'architecte de la ville d'Avignon qui s'est chargé de diriger les travaux du monument et qui connaît exactement mes intentions. Il est d'autant plus nécessaire que M. Pascal soit au rapport avec vous, car nous-mêmes ne serons pas à Avignon pendant la moitié du mois.
Nous nous entendons parfaitement sur le prix, qui selon vos2 lettres du 25 août et du 3 sept est, pour les trois morceaux livrés à Avignon: 6000 fr plus les frais du transport. Mais quant à la proposition que vous me faites d'en payer la moitié ou le tiers d'avance, je ne comprends pas par quel motif vous avez pu faire une proposition tellement inusitée, et je ne peus pas y consentir. Le prix sera payé lorsque les trois marbres se trouveront rendus à Avignon dans les conditions convenues. Si vous désirez des renseignements je vous pourrais les obtenir de mes banquiers, la maison Prescott Grote et Cie de Edition: current; Page: [637] Londres, à qui je pourrais ajouter beaucoup d'autres personnes si vous le désiriez.
S'il vous arrive d'avoir des questions ou des observations à faire, veuillez les adresser à M. Pascal, à l'Hôtel de Ville d'Avignon.
J'ai reçu aujourdhui de M. Pascal communication de vos deux lettres du 10 et 11 sept.
Ce que nous avons à discuter ne regarde pas les possibilités de veines ou de taches dans les morceaux. Depuis que j'ai vu le bloc il n'y a plus eu de doute sur cette partie du sujet.
Je consens à prendre sur moi tous les risques qui ne regardent que la qualité du marbre. Mais il n'en est pas de même quant aux chances de dommage dans le transport. Dans tout ce qui s'est passé entre nous et expressément dans ma lettre du 7, il a été stipulé que les marbres seraient livrés à Avignon moyennant un surcroît de prix convenable. Il est évident pour moi, qui ne sais pas du métier et qui n'ai aucune expérience en pareilles matières, je ne pourrais me charger des précautions nécessaires pour assurer le transport d'un objet de cette nature et il ne me conviendrait nullement qu'après avoir payé les marbres 6000 francs un ou plusieurs d'autre cas arriveraient fêlés au milieu gâtés par des écornures.
Je vous prie donc de vouloir bien me dire pour quelle indemnité vous consentiriez à vous charger des risques du transport. Si ces risques sont petits vous n'auriez pas de motif suffisant pour vous y refuser; tandis qu'ils sont grands vous ne pourriez vous étonner que je ne veuille pas m'y exposer. Selon toute probabilité ils seraient petits pour vous, et très grands pour moi. Ceci est donc une condition sine qua non du marché. Pour la question de fournir le marbre en trois morceaux ou en deux je n'y tiens pas, et je me remets là dessus à votre jugement.
Veuillez donc, Messieurs, m'informer par le premier courrier quel surcroît de prix que vous demandez en considération des frais et risques du transport. Vous voudrez bien mettre votre lettre dans une enveloppe adressée à M. Pascal qui me l'enverra après en avoir pris connaissance
Si la Compagnie du chemin de fer garantit la sûreté de pareilles marchandises moyennant une prime d'assurance, cela offrirait une solution facile de la difficulté.
Je viens de recevoir votre lettre du 20 sept.
Puisque vous acceptez les conditions posées dans ma lettre du 16 sept et que vous consentez à prendre sur vous les risques du transport moyennant un surcroît de prix de 800 frcs, je consens au surcroît, et je m'engage à payer le prix de fr 6800 à la livraison sur wagon en gare d'Avignon des deux blocs, en bonne condition, avec les dimensions exactes indiquées dans la lettre qui vous a été adressée par M. Pascal.
Je vous engage à presser le travail autant que possible, en tout cas, à ne pas dépasser le terme de 20 jours mentionné dans votre lettre à M. Pascal du 10 sept. Vous voudrez bien avertir M. Pascal du jour où les marbres arriveront à Avignon.
Thanks for the prompt payment of the £2002 and likewise for Fraser.3 I shall be happy to send you another paper4 when I feel prompted to write anything which will suit the Magazine. If any subject should occur to you on which I can write at a distance from books, I should be glad if you would mention it.
The articles you sent from the two reviews, and three newspaper articles,5 have reached me since I last wrote. Of these the only one of much importance is that in the National, which I conjecture to be by Martineau.6 It is quite as favorable as it could be, consistently with the writer's opinions, and will I Edition: current; Page: [639] think be useful. The others are poor stuff, except the article in the Guardian,7 which interested me somewhat. By the by there was on the other side of the page, part of an article, evidently favorable on Mr Bain's book.8 I wish you had sent that likewise.
I have received and answered Messrs Rankin's letter.9
If it is not a secret, who is G.D.H., the writer of the article on Bacon?10
I have received an application from Lorimer, saying that he is a candidate for the office of Principal of the Univ. of St. Andrews,2 vacant by Sir D. Brewster's removal to Edinburgh3 & asking me to write in his favour to Sir G. Lewis.4 Before I give him any answer I am desirous to know whether you are likely to be a candidate, as if you have any idea of being so I should not think of giving a recommendation to any one else. Therefore please write directly that I may be able to answer Lorimer as soon as possible.
I am your debtor for an interesting letter dated as long ago as Sept. 8. I am afraid I shall not be able to repay you in kind. You have probably seen before this time what I have written about your book.5 I am glad to see by the advertt that Reeve has put it at the head of the number. What you say of the notices in the Athenaeum6 & Press7 gave me pleasure. I saw accidentally part of another, apparently favourable & likely to be useful, in the Guardian.8 The single paragraph in the Westminster9 was shabby but I hope Grote persists in his intention of reviewing you there10 when he has finished with Plato—who Edition: current; Page: [640] seems to take him a length of time only to be warranted by using the opportunity to speak out very plainly on the great subjects—a thing I rather wish than expect he will be found to have done; though the perfect impunity of the bold things in the Liberty ought to give him courage of one qui bene est ausus vana contemnere.11 Have you seen any of the recent reviews of the Liberty? That in the Dublin Univ Mag,12 for instance, & the series of letters in the Engl. Churchman?13 People are beginning to find out that the doctrines of the book are more opposed to their old opinions & feelings than they at first saw, & are taking the alarm accordingly & rallying for a fight. But they have in general dealt candidly with me, & not too violently. As was to be expected they claim for Xtian morality all the things which I say are not in it, which is just what I wanted to provoke them to do. The article in the National Rev. on my writings generally is worth reading.14 It seems to be by Martineau & I am obliged to him for it, since it is favourable to the utmost extent consistent with the writer's opinions & decidedly tends to increase rather than diminish the influence which he says is already so great. I really had no idea of being so influential a person as my critics tell me I am. But being thought to have influence is the surest way of obtaining it really. The arguments of the reviewer on the controverted points you will I think agree with me in considering to be very easily answerable.
I hope to hear that your peccant limb is quite restored.15 It has been a very tedious business for you. As for myself I am in very fair health though I do not find it so easy a matter to keep my digestion right as it used to be a year or two ago. We shall be here, I expect, for at least two months from this time, & it is at present uncertain where we shall be able to go afterwards. I am employing myself in working up some papers which have been lying by me, with additional matter into a little treatise on Utilitarianism.16 I only hope you will like it as well as I expect to like your discussion of Phrenology.17 That, both on its own account & from the nature of the topics which Edition: current; Page: [641] it raises, is one of the most important things you could do. In what shape do you intend to publish it?
I was very sorry to see the death of Nichol.18 He had a geniality of character which was very pleasing & interesting: his influence which his activity & enthusiasm made considerable was almost always given to right opinions & his conversation was that of a thinking, instructed, & right feeling man on many more subjects than those which he mostly wrote upon.
Le délai de 20 jours que vous avez demandé pour l'expédition des blocs de marbre s'est terminé le 15. Comme vous n'aviez donné de réponse ni à la lettre que je vous écrivis de Sisteron, ni à celle écrite d'ici par M. Pascal, celui-ci vous envoya une dépêche télégraphique, à laquelle vous répondez le 18me [que] l'un des blocs serait expédié de Paris en trois jours, mais que l'autre ne serait pas prêt, et sans la moindre indication du jour où il le serait. Après le temps précieux perdu en correspondances, j'avais le droit de compter que vous vous tiendriez au temps fixé par vous mêmes. Je ne veux pas que l'un bloc soit envoyé sans l'autre, parceque si après que je l'eusse accepté, l'autre se trouvait écorné et gâté dans le transport le premier me serait inutile et j'en serais pour mon temps et pour mon argent. Vous m'avez manqué de parole, et probablement fait échouer tous [les] projets pour cet hiver. J'ajoute seulement que si les blocs n'arrivent pas avant la fin du mois je me croirai libéré de tout engagement envers vous.
Vous avez exprimé, il y a quelque temps, quelque velléité de traduire le petit livre sur la Liberté.2 Quelque prix que je mise à ce qu'il fût traduit par Edition: current; Page: [642] une plume comme la vôtre, je craignes dès lors que la divergence d'opinion ne fût trop considérable pour que vous donnassiez suite à ce projet, et je vous en dis quelques mots à cet effet. N'ayant plus eu de vos nouvelles j'ai peur que mon présentiment ne soit vérifié. Depuis ce temps-là, j'ai reçu plus d'une proposition au même sujet, mais aucune que me parût acceptable. Aujourd'hui il m'est arrivé une proposition de faire une traduction qui paraîtrait sous les auspices d'Emile de Girardin,3 avec des notes et une préface de lui. Ce projet réunirait évidemment des conditions excellentes pour la bonne exécution et pour le succès: mais il me répugne d'être associé, de quelque manière que ce soit, avec l'homme qui a tué Carrel.4 Dans ces circonstances il me serait très désirable de savoir si vous avez positivement renoncé au projet que vous aviez d'abord conçu. S'il n'en était point ainsi, j'aurais, avec le grand avantage d'être traduit par vous, celui d'avoir une réponse toute prête à l'offre qu'on vient de me faire. Je prends donc la liberté de vous demander un mot là-dessus, et ce serait pour moi un grand plaisir si ce mot était plus favorable que je n'ose l'espérer.
Agréez, Monsieur, l'expression de ma considération très particulière.
I was much pleased by receiving from you so satisfactory an account of your proceedings at Bradford,2 and of the prospects of the cause; and the more so as the omission by the newspapers of all mention of your paper had made me fear that some unforeseen obstacle had prevented your reading it. I was very much interested by your account of Mr Fawcett.3 So active an interest in progress in a man early afflicted with such a misfortune as blindness, Edition: current; Page: [643] is very rare and meritorious. Is the recovery of his sight quite hopeless?4 It is very desirable that the friends of real representation should be in communication, in order to combine their efforts in forcing the idea on the attention of careless people, since want of familiarity with it is the chief obstacle it has to encounter. Mr Fawcett's idea therefore of bringing a few together at Cambridge5 is very good, and I hope you will go.
I have not much opportunity of helping you at this distance, but I endeavour to do so. I lately offered to the editor of the Edinburgh Review6 to write an article on your book, not much expecting that he would consent, but unwilling to lose a chance. He answered "I am afraid it will not be compatible with the other arrangements of the Review for me to accept the article you suggest, at least at present. The whole question of Parliamentary Reform has been so bedevilled by bungling operators and repeated failures, that I find it very unsafe to continue the discussion of it until we have some clear prospect of a definite result. I agree with you however in thinking that the plans advocated by Mr Hare and Mr Lorimer (of Edinburgh) are not devoid of merit and of interest." So he keeps the door open, and is willing to advocate the plan—when he thinks it will succeed.
You are safe in directing to me here for some weeks.
I have received your letter of Nov. 2, and the prospectus contained in it. I need not say that I wish success to the scheme,2 but I have not much confidence Edition: current; Page: [644] in the management by a company or board, of a business in which, in addition to the ordinary considerations of profit, questions of speculative opinion necessarily play so large a part. A Catholic society for the purpose may succeed, because its creed is definite, and every person concerned knows what it is: and because it has an assured market for its publications, most of which besides are reprints of prayer books and generally accepted works. But freethinkers and extreme liberals do not form a body at all; they differ as much from one another as they do from the orthodox, and have often as bad an opinion of the tendency of each other's writings as the orthodox have. In any case it would not be convenient for me at present to embark any money in the scheme.
With regard to the Westminster: I have never ceased to consider myself as a potential contributor, and I shall be very well disposed to give it an occasional article; but so long as it cannot pay its expenses without gratuitous assistance, I should not think of accepting payment for any contributions I might furnish.
I am aware of the interest Lord Stanley takes in the Westminster,3 and I was equally surprised and pleased to hear of it. I am
C'est avec un grand plaisir que j'ai reçu votre lettre. La traduction du petit livre ne saurait être dans des mains plus capables.2 Je suis heureux de trouver en vous un ami de Carrel. Je me réjouirai toujours de l'avoir, moi aussi, personnellement connu, et je conserve de lui un souvenir des plus vifs. Pensant qu'un petit opuscule que j'ai consacré à sa mémoire pourrait peut-être vous intéresser, je vais écrire à mon éditeur de vous expédier un exemplaire d'un recueil de mes petits écrits, dans lequel vous trouverez cette notice.3 Je vous Edition: current; Page: [645] prie de l'accepter comme témoignage des sentiments avec lesquels je suis, Monsieur
I am glad that you & Grote liked the article in the Edinburgh.2 It is a considerable thing to have got the Ed. to say that the experience philosophy & the association psychology are getting up again, & to praise & recommend a book on that side of the question. I shall look with interest for Grote's article when he is able to write it.3 With regard to his Plato, one would be reconciled to the long time he spends over it if he were going to speak out his whole mind at last. But his timidity on the population subject is of bad augury. It would be easy enough to keep from any close contact with the physical part of the subject & yet convey clearly enough all he means, or needs to say. But he seems to be incurable. I have no doubt however that there will be much useful & improving matter in his book, & the longer he is in finishing it, the more thought there is likely to be in it when it is done. And with this we shall have to be contented, in default of better.
It is very pleasant to hear that you will be ready with the discussion of Phrenology & the science of character by next spring.4 It is an excellent plan to publish it in the first instance in Fraser if Parker will take it. Besides being much earlier and more widely read, it will be an advertisement of the other volumes. I expect to learn a good deal from it & to be helped by it in anything I may hereafter write on Ethology5—a subject I have long wished to take up, at least in the form of Essays, but have never yet felt myself sufficiently prepared. I do not think of publishing my Utilitarianism6 till next winter at the earliest, though it is now finished, subject to any correction or enlargement which may suggest itself in the interval. It will be but a small book, about a fifth less than the Liberty, if I make no addition to it. But small books are so much more read than large ones that it is an advantage when one's matter will go into a small space. I have not written it in any hostile spirit towards Edition: current; Page: [646] Xtianity, though undoubtedly both good ethics & good metaphysics will sap Xtianity if it persists in allying itself with bad. The best thing to do in the present state of the human mind is to go on establishing positive truths (principles & rules of evidence of course included) & leave Xtianity to reconcile itself with them the best way it can. By that course, in so far as we have any success, we are at least sure of doing something to improve Christianity.
I have just sent to Parker for next month's Fraser a paper on Non-Intervention,7 in which there are some severe things said of Lord Palmerston's conduct in opposing the Suez Canal.8 That affair is damaging the character of England on the Continent more than most people are aware of; it is so direct a confirmation of the old & false ideas respecting the selfish foreign policy of England.
It is amusing to have drawn out Candlish.9 I expect a series of attacks now from the bigotted portion of all religious sects.
Je vous prie de vouloir bien m'informer par le premier courrier, s'il y a moyen de prendre sur ce qui reste du grand bloc, un morceau ayant les dimensions suivantes, savoir—longueur 1.90 mètres largeur 75 centimètres, hauteur 40 centimètres: et en cas de réponse affirmative, quel en serait le prix (frais de transport compris) et en combien de jours vous pourriez l'expédier.
It gave me real pleasure to hear from you again after so long an interval, & I am much indebted to you for the opportunity of reading your Edition: current; Page: [647] first volume while still unpublished.2 I have read it all with great interest, much of it with sincere admiration & sympathy: & (what you probably care more about) with no little admiration also for the eminent Catholic writers whom you quote.3 Many of them I was already disposed to think highly of, but my knowledge of them was chiefly at second hand. The questions you put to me I will with pleasure attempt to answer. A candid adversary has as great a claim as a supporter, to one's best endeavours for making one's meaning clear to him, even if no change of opinion is likely to result. I never feel so sure of doing good as when I find that my writings have given matter for thought to those who differ from me; a service which your treatise is well calculated to render, if I may judge from its effect on myself.
With regard to the passages in which I am mentioned4 (with the same good feeling which you have always shewn towards me) my answer is that both Mr Herbert Spencer & you have misunderstood me. When I spoke of inferences as necessarily following from premisses,5 I was not using the word necessary in its metaphysical but in its popular sense. I meant neither more nor less than that the reasoning process is, to us, conclusive evidence of what it proves: take the testimony of our senses, which neither you nor I nor any one considers to be necessary in the philosophical sense. As soon as I read Mr Spencer's criticism6 I saw that I had given ground for it, by an incautious use of the word necessary, which I endeavoured to correct in revising the book for another edition. My mistake was not so much in using the term in a double sense, as in not giving proper notice that I did so. For at that time I thought the word necessary a word worth retaining in philosophy; & I therefore, in conformity to my own rule (so to define words that their application may cover the same ground, & if possible even the same extent of ground, as before) used it as a designation for those properties of things which are deducible from the properties implied in their names. All mathematical Edition: current; Page: [648] truths, & truths analogous to mathematical, are in this sense necessary. As therefore I wished to keep the word necessary specifically for truths which are the results of reasoning, I was not unnaturally led into applying the term to the reasoning process itself. But (as I said before) I meant nothing in this case by necessity, but conclusiveness.
I dare say you are not aware that in the last ed. of the Logic I added a chapter in reply to Mr. Spencer,7 in which may be seen what I have to say against his own doctrine, but if I remember right, I scarcely if at all, touched upon his remarks on myself.
While I am on this part of the subject, I hope you will allow me to say, that I do not think there is any ground for the distinction you draw between the evidence of present & that of past sensations, classing the one as experience & the other as intuition.8 If remembering were one act of the mind, trusting to memory another act, & judging that memory is to be trusted a third, your doctrine might be admissible. But they seem to me to be all three the same act, just as when I press my hand against an object—feeling resistance, trusting the feeling, & judging that it is to be trusted are all one. We cannot remember that which did not happen; no more than we can see or feel what does not happen. When I feel so & so, I cannot doubt that I do feel so & so; & when I remember to have felt so & so I cannot doubt that I did feel so & so. Memory I take to be the present consciousness of a past sensation. It is strange that such consciousness can exist; but the facts denoted by was, is, & is to come, are perhaps the most mysterious part of our mysterious existence, as is strikingly expressed in the well known saying of St Augustine.9 If I have made sufficiently clear what I mean, I think you will see that it leaves in my apprehensions nothing to be done by the intuitive act which your doctrine interposes. There indeed remains the act of generalization which we perform when from remembering particular facts we ascend to the general proposition that Memory may be trusted, in other words that we have a faculty of Memory; but this generalization & classification of acts of our own mind, has nothing in it contradictory to the Experience doctrine, which always admits facts of internal consciousness as well as of external sensation, & considers the same logical processes as applicable to both.Edition: current; Page: [649]
Now as to the still more important subject of the meaning of ought. I will endeavour to explain the sense I attach to it, though this cannot be done in very few words. I believe that the word has in some respects a different meaning to different people. We must first distinguish between those who have themselves a moral feeling—a feeling of approving & condemning conscience, & those who have not, or in whom what they may have is dormant. I believe that those who have no feeling of right & wrong cannot possibly intue10 the rightness or wrongness of anything. They may assent to the proposition that a certain rule of conduct is right; but they really mean nothing except that such is the conduct which other people expect & require at their hands; with perhaps the addition that they have a strong motive for themselves requiring the same from other people. This you will probably agree with, & I will therefore pass to the case of those who have a true moral feeling, that is, a feeling of pain in the fact of violating a certain rule, quite independently of any expected consequences to themselves. It appears to me that to them the word ought means, that if they act otherwise, they shall be punished by this internal, & perfectly disinterested feeling. Unless they would be so punished, or unless they think they would, any assertion they make to themselves that they ought so to act seems to me to lose its proper meaning, & to refer only to the sentiments of others, or of themselves at some other time or in some other case.
If I am asked, what is the nature of this feeling, & whence it comes, I do not think that it is exactly of the same nature, or has exactly the same origin, in all who have it. My father's theory of it,11 which you quote, seems to me a sufficient account of it as it exists in many minds. I certainly do not accept that theory as an exhaustive analysis of the phenomenon: yet I do not think your refutation, even of that theory, a sufficient one; inasmuch as the generation of a complex feeling from simpler ones being a sort of chemical union, not a mechanical juxtaposition, it is quite to be expected that the compound will be to appearances unlike the elements it is formed from. The pains of conscience are certainly very different from those of dread of disapprobation; yet it might well be, that the innumerable associations of pain with doing wrong which have been rivetted by a long succession of pains undergone, or pains feared or imagined as the consequence of wrong things done, or of wrong things which we have been tempted to do (especially in early life), may produce a general & intense feeling of recoil from wrongdoing in which no conscious influence of other people's disapprobation may be perceptible.
However, I do not hold this to be the normal form of moral feeling. I conceive that feeling to be a natural outgrowth from the social nature of man: a Edition: current; Page: [650] state of society is so eminently natural to human beings that anything which is an obviously indispensable condition of social life, easily comes to act upon their minds almost like a physical necessity. Now it is an indispensable condition of all society, except between master & slave, that each shall pay regard to the other's happiness. On this basis, combined with a human creature's capacity of fellow-feeling, the feelings of morality properly so called seem to me to be grounded, & their main constituent to be the idea of punishment. I feel conscious that if I violate certain laws, other people must necessarily or naturally desire that I shd be punished for the violation. I also feel that I shd desire them to be punished if they violated the same laws towards me. From these feelings & from my sociality of nature I place myself in their situation, & sympathize in their desire that I shd be punished; & (even apart from benevolence) the painfulness of not being in union with them makes me shrink from pursuing a line of conduct which would make my ends, wishes, & purposes habitually conflict with theirs. To this fellow feeling with man may of course be added (if I may so express myself) fellow feeling with God, & recoil from the idea of not being in union with Him. May I add, that even to an unbeliever there may be a feeling similar in nature towards an ideal God? as there may be towards an ideally perfect man, or towards our friends who are no more, even if we do not feel assured of their immortality. All these feelings are immensely increased in strength by a reflected influence from other persons who feel the same.
This is the nearest approach I am able to make to a theory of our moral feelings. I have written it out, much more fully, in a little manuscript treatise12 which I propose to publish when I have kept it by me for the length of time I think desirable & given it such further improvement as I am capable of. Perhaps the short statement I have now made will convey some notion of what my opinion is though a very imperfect one of the manner in which I should support it.—I am very sincerely yours,
P.S. I had not heard of the article in the Rambler but have now sent for it.13
Je viens de recevoir votre lettre du 27. Je vous prie maintenant de préparer le nouveau bloc dans les conditions de votre lettre du 24, c.à.d. au prix de 3000 frs rendu sur wagon en gare à Avignon, et dans l'intervalle de 15 jours.
Je vous remercie beaucoup de votre lettre et de l'envoi de la Revue où se trouve votre article.2 Je l'ai lu avec très grand plaisir. Abstraction faite des louanges dont vous me comblez, et dans lesquelles je vois un nouvel indice de l'amitié et de la sympathie que vous ressentez pour moi, je puis dire en toute sincérité que vous avez donné une excellente analyse de l'ouvrage. Vous en avez mis en relief les idées dominantes, vous avez assez appuyé sur chacune pour la faire bien saisir, et cela de la manière non d'un copiste, mais d'un penseur dont les idées ne sont pas tirées de l'auteur dont il parle mais se sont rencontrées avec lui. Grâce à vous, les lecteurs de la Revue doivent avoir aujourd'hui du livre et de moi une idée très avantageuse, ce qui, je l'avoue, me fait plaisir, car la vive sympathie que j'éprouve pour l'Italie fait que je me plais à l'idée d'être en rapport intellectuel avec les bons esprits du pays.
Comme vous je crains que la position actuelle des affaires, empirée comme elle est par la démission de Garibaldi,3 n'ait des suites fâcheuses. Qu'il en résulte la dissolution des volontaires, ou des excès populaires dans la Romagne, l'un ou l'autre résultat serait également nuisible à la cause de l'Italie. C'est sans doute ce que désire celui qui4 a mis les choses en cet état, et qui ne veut pas que les Italiens soient soustraits à leurs tyrans actuels par une autre Edition: current; Page: [652] main que par celle d'un nouveau maître. Ce n'est qu'en se tenant sous les armes, et en montrant la ferme volonté de se battre pour la liberté envers et contre tous, que l'Italie pourra obtenir du Congrès des conditions supportables. Je suis persuadé que l'Angleterre fera dans le Congrès,5 si elle y prend part, tout son possible pour vous. Mais comme tout le monde sait qu'elle n'en fera pas un cas de guerre son influence sera peu de chose. Les trois despotes6 sont probablement déjà d'accord pour lui ménager un affront.
Je félicite le gouvernement toscan de votre nomination à la chaire d'histoire à Pise.7 Je sens toutefois combien il vous sera difficile d'appliquer à ces paisibles travaux les forces de votre esprit, tant que les destinées de l'Italie restent suspendues sur le fil d'un rasoir.
Fraser for December2 has arrived this morning—nine days after it was posted. Napoleon the Third has taken that time to make up his mind whether to let it pass.
Possibly therefore the two French reviews3 may now have received their copies; and therefore if you have not sent the article, in an envelope, to them, it is unnecessary to do so for the present.
The same post brought the Daily News,4 and also the Economist:5 your people having cut out the article which you doubtless intended to send and having sent the paper without the article, instead of the article without the paper.
A Mr Durand6 of New York who conducts a periodical called the Crayon Edition: current; Page: [653] (of which he says he has sent a copy through you) requests permission to reprint one or more of the Dissertations in his magazine. I cannot give him permission without your consent; but as the sale would rather be promoted than injured by his doing so, it would perhaps be desirable. I should like the number which he has sent, to be forwarded by post.
I duly received the Bradford paper2 you were so good as to send, and I quite agree with you as to the excellence of the account it gives, in so short a compass, of your plan. I also received the Law Magazine, and read Mr Mayo's paper3 with much interest. It shews a real understanding of the subject, and a decided capacity for such studies. I was more prompt in answering his letter than I have been in acknowledging yours.
It gave me great pleasure to hear of the article you were writing for Fraser.4 The line you intended to take (I speak in the past tense, for it is probably by this time completed) seems to me very useful, and one which you are well entitled to take. The more I think of your plan, the more it appears to me to be the great discovery in representative government. As you have read the two volumes of Dissertations, you have seen how during a great part of my life I have been troubled by the difficulty of reconciling democratic institutions with the maintenance of a great social support for dissentient opinions. Now, your plan distinctly solves this difficulty. The portion of the House of Commons returned by an union of minorities would be this social support, in its most Edition: current; Page: [654] effective form; since its members would meet in the same arena with the organs of the majority; would command public attention, which under any other organisation of minorities might be refused to them; and would have the opportunity of obtruding upon the public daily proofs of the superiority of individual value which they would generally have over their antagonists. In no other way, that I can conceive, would it be possible to maintain a real superiority of power in the majority, along with a full & fair hearing for minorities, and an organization of them which would be all the more effective from being natural and spontaneous. If the Americans would but adopt your plan (which I fear they never will) the bad side of their government and institutions, namely the practical exclusion of all the best minds from political influence, would soon cease. Let us hope that in the old country (thanks to you) democracy will come in this better form.
I quite agree with you in expecting no benefit whatever from any reform bill likely to be brought forward by the present government.2 Neither they nor the Tories wish to make elections unexpensive; they will not, therefore, take the only effective measure against bribery, by prohibiting and making penal all expenses whatever (the small amount of necessary expense being defrayed by the locality). That is mauvaise volonté on their part: but this is chiefly stupidity: neither of them will adopt Hare's plan,3 whereby any person of reputation for talent would be sure of being brought in by some set of electors or other if he chose, without needing any local influence. If Hare's plan were acted on, you would be in Parliament directly;4 and anybody else whose adherents or admirers are scattered over the country generally. As this plan would be essentially, and in the best sense of the word, Conservative, as well as, also in the best sense, liberal and democratic, it ought to unite both parties in supporting it: only such people as Bright,5 the mere demagogue Edition: current; Page: [655] and courtier of the majority, are its natural opponents. Notwithstanding this, we shall not have it, until some government finds itself obliged to give a largely extended suffrage, and has sense to see that this plan would diminish the danger of the concession, under cover of which they could contrive to pass it. I am strongly of opinion however that the way by which most good can be done on the Reform question, is by agitating on this point.
I am glad you like the paper in Fraser.6 It has certainly been very successful, and coming out just at the time it did, may have some practical effect. It has been sent, not to Galignani (who certainly would not reprint it in his paper) but to several of the principal French reviews7 and public writers. What you say about the real nature of the liberality of English public men is very true. But I had nothing to do with that. I was only concerned with their acts, and the doctrines they profess. The opposition to the Suez Canal8 adds greatly to the difficulty of their doing the kind of things mentioned in your letter—for every project for international communication patronized by England, is sure henceforth to be opposed by other countries.
Quelques jours s'étant écoulés depuis la terminaison des quinze jours que vous avez fixés dans votre lettre du 1er décembre pour l'expédition du morceau supplémentaire de marbre statuaire, je vous prie de vouloir bien m'informer si ce morceau est prêt, ou sinon, quel jour vous croyez pouvoir l'envoyer à la gare.
J'ai appris avec plaisir par votre lettre du 7 que vous aviez presque terminé un nouveau livre, sur la Centralisation.2 Je ne doute pas que la lecture ne Edition: current; Page: [656] m'en soit aussi utile qu'agréable. Je vous applaudis de vous être beaucoup occupé, en cette matière, des lois et des usages anglais. Je ne me rappelle pas d'avoir remarqué dans votre ouvrage "L'Individu et l'Etat" des erreurs importantes sur l'Angleterre. Sans doute il serait à peine croyable qu'il ne s'en rencontrassent pas quelques-unes, vu la très grande difficulté qu'éprouve toujours un étranger à bien connaître un pays quelconque: difficulté peutêtre encore plus grande pour l'Angleterre que pour les autres pays, tant la pratique des institutions anglaises s'écarte parfois de leur théorie. Je n'ai pas l'ouvrage avec moi ici, sans cela je le relirais pour tâcher de vous donner les indications que vous désirez.
Pour passer à un autre sujet, il y a une idée nouvellement éclose en Angleterre, qui n'a pas encore, que je sache, passé le détroit, et qui pourra être intéressante à un penseur qui s'occupe comme vous du mécanisme des institutions politiques, et qui est capable d'apprécier les idées grandes et fécondes. Celle-ci se rapporte au système représentatif, dont en France comme en Angleterre il est important de perfectionner la théorie, en attendant qu'on puisse de nouveau le posséder de fait. Tous les systèmes existants ont le grand défaut que la majorité est seule representée; tandisque dans les principes même du suffrage égal et universel, une minorité quelconque d'électeurs a le droit d'être representée par une minorité correspondante de l'assemblée. Or, un penseur anglais, Mr. Hare, a proposé une organisation au moyen de laquelle, en supposant par exemple un député par dix mille électeurs, tout candidat qui réunirait dix mille voix dans tout le pays serait nommé. J'ai rendu compte de son système dans le supplément de la seconde édition d'une brochure que j'ai publiée sur la réforme parlementaire,3 ne l'ayant pas connu à temps pour en parler dans la première édition. Je vous ferai envoyer cette brochure par mon éditeur, et si, après avoir lu l'analyse que j'ai donnée du livre de Mr. Hare,4 vous désirez en savoir davantage, je vous enverrai ensuite le livre même.
Je suis charmé que l'opinion favorable que vous avez bien voulu exprimer du livre de la Liberté se soutienne à un examen plus approfondi, et que vous soyez content aussi de ce que vous aviez lu des Dissertations. Je me suis tant occupé, dans ce recueil, de la France et de choses françaises, que je ne puis manquer d'être tombé dans beaucoup d'erreurs. Je vous aurais une véritable obligation de toutes celles que vous voudriez bien me mettre à même de rectifier.
J'adresse ma lettre à Paris, croyant que le froid de la saison vous y aura probablement ramené.Edition: current; Page: [657]
Agréez, Monsieur, l'expression sincère de mes sentimens respectueux et amicaux.
P.S. Je rouvre ma lettre pour répondre à la vôtre du 18. La loi de réforme de nos corporations municipales est de 1835.5 Sans pouvoir l'assurer je crois que le renseignement qu'on vous a donné doit être inexact, et que si les Communes ont besoin d'un assentiment quelconque pour s'imposer ou pour emprunter, c'est de celui du Parlement.
Je vous remercie de l'indication sur la Revue des Deux Mondes.6 Je puis la voir au Musée d'ici.
Puis que vous êtes toujours à Fontainebleau je vous y adresse la lettre.
I have only just received your note informing me of the death of one of the men whom I most valued,2 and to whom I have been morally and intellectually most indebted. I had learned the sad news some weeks ago from the Athenaeum,3 and it was a greater shock to me as the characteristic vigour of his assumption of authorship last winter4 had made me hope that his health had undergone a decided improvement and that the termination of his career was still far distant.
I believe that few persons, so little known to the common world, have left so high a reputation with the instructed few; and though superficially he may seem to have accomplished little in comparison with his powers, few have contributed more by their individual influence and their conversation to the formation and the growth of a number of the most active minds of this generation.
For myself I have always regarded my early knowledge of him as one of the fortunate circumstances of my life.5 I am
I got here prosperously and without once feeling cold, and have done all my business here—witness the paper I am writing on, & witness also the two numbers of the Revue des 2 mondes which they promise to send by the same post. I luckily found at the gare About's book "La Grèce Contemporaine"2 which I read in the train during the heavy shower and when the country was not interesting—but generally I did not want to read, as I never saw the mountains look finer. All on the right, (& on the left too as we approached Lyons) were covered with snow so nearly to the very plain, that I feared I should find snow on the ground here—but I only found the most enormous mud & wet. About's book will interest you if we go to Greece, and what he says mostly agrees so well with all I know, that I incline to trust him in what I do not know. I have bought the Flore de Dauphiné,3 a quite new one. I went into Notre Dame in passing; they have erected a flêche on the roof, in imitation of that of the Sainte Chapelle: it is not so ugly as it might have been, but they have covered the interior with their polychromatism which to my eye is by no means an improvement. The hinder half of the building is shut up, as the workmen are still on it both within & without. I am going via Calais, as the Boulogne hours do not suit; so I shall arrive early tomorrow. I am now going out to put this in the post and to have dinner. I will write again as soon as I arrive. Good bye dear. I do not half like this going away from you.
I arrived here about nine this morning not at all tired, but having been ill (though not very) during the passage. It was a rough sea, and Edition: current; Page: [660] the short pitching of the steamer was trying. There had been five or six weeks of rain at Paris and it rained here up to yesterday but I found a hard white frost. As you will know by this time, Parliament met on Tuesday instead of today,2 as we thought. I was luckily able to get yesterday's paper at the London Bridge station & so read the debate—which was as satisfactory as any debate ever is in that stupid house. I found Hadji looking pale but, I thought, with a more animated (or rather less dead) expression of countenance than usual. He seems disposed to be amiable. Puss (who seems to have entirely forgotten me) quite startled me by her size—rather bulk than stature. It may be an illusion, from having been used to a little puss & little doggy (to whom remember me) especially as the teapot also looked as if it had grown. Elizabeth3 asks to be allowed to have a woman to help her one day in the week. I assented (thinking the request moderate) and she is going to try to get Mrs Goodenough. I write this in some haste previous to going out to the ironmonger's at Greenwich. So goodbye dear. I shall not always give you these small sheets. Ever affectionately
I have not lost any time since I arrived here. I saw Coulson yesterday morning, and he advised me to see him again in a fortnight, after taking four of the pills, which he thinks will very likely be sufficient, & I should not wonder if they were, as I seem better even without taking them, and yesterday was the first evening for more than three months when I have had no signs of indigestion without having taken either magnesia or anything else. I took the first pill last night. Yesterday I saw Parker, Prescott, and Thornton. I was very glad to find that Thornton has again hopes for his poor boy—who appears to have gone through a crisis, evacuated the contents of an abscess or an ulcer in the lungs, and to be now better. India affairs, or at least India House affairs, seem even worse than appeared from his letter. He told Edition: current; Page: [661] me some instances of the ignorance & presumption of Wood2 which startled even me. From Parker I heard as usual some gossip about publications, and (of course) outpourings against the new shilling magazines, Thackeray's3 & McMillan's,4 which he describes as mere Barnum affairs,5 paying any fabulous sums to get names, while the bulk is written by the mere riff raff of the press. In proof of the first he affirmed what seems quite incredible, that they give Tennyson a guinea a line for poems i.e. for the first publication, for they do not even get the copyright. He says that T. has given one to McMillan, one to Thackeray, one to Once a Week,6 & that Mrs Tennyson proposed to him (Parker) that he should give one to Fraser, but P. refused, saying that it would not pay to give such a high price & that he should not like to give him less than others gave. As for McMillan we shall judge for ourselves what it is worth, as I have bought the three numbers and will send them to you as soon as I have looked through them (if I have time to do so). He says Kingsley has refused to write for McMillan or for any magazine but Fraser. He says however that K. is done up in point of health & means to rest for years to come except as regards his parish. He told me various things of the Queen's & Prince's civilities to K.7 and that he was given to understand he might be a Dean or something more, but that he kept to what he had said years ago, that he would take no preferment that would remove him from Eversley. I tell you any gossip I hear that may either interest or amuse you. In my "main objects in coming here" as the footman who climbed Mont Blanc said (meaning to throw a summerset on the top) I have not got on fast. With all diligence I have only read four Saturdays, and have only got through the merely provisional sorting of one of the two packets of plants. This part of the job takes much longer than I ever knew it to do before. In the Saturday I am stuck (after the intermission) by its general dénigrement of all public men & notorieties, the extreme exaggeration of its hostility to democratic changes, & by a very uniform & monotonous line of subdued jocularity in its criticisms on minor victims.8 Still it is as interesting as ever to read, malgré the oldness of the topics. I inclose a Mem. of your account at Prescott's, extracted from your book. You will see that the balance is ample. Now touching the house—there Edition: current; Page: [662] are no visible cracks outside, all having been filled up during the summer but what has struck Ross9 is a very marked bulging of the east half of the brickwork above the darling's window beyond the west half, which is very apparent even from the road & must be disagreeable to Ross's feelings as a house proprietor. In your room there is a second large crack inside near the one which Suter10 saw & pronounced harmless—but this one is larger (it is just on the right side of the top of the window) & shews the west end of the house to be breaking away from the east end. Hadji thinks it may not be new since Suter saw the other but may then have been hid by the paper. The kitchen side of the house seems safe enough at present, but the cracks must have been prodigious: they have not reopened, and the wall is [shored?] up by shores near the kitchen window. I think I must have Suter to see the crack in your room. H. says that Girling10 (who professes to understand such things) declares that the brickwork of the lamed arch need not be taken down, but that an iron bar, applied I do not yet understand how, will make all perfectly safe. If what he says when I see him appears plausible, it may be well to try, and so postpone the decision on anything further till you are here. I find to my surprise that Haji is still taking music lessons. This agrees with the other signs that he is not really studying economy. Hann11 has undertaken to give black edges to the cards. I find I cannot get a Times to read, as Wray12 has none disposable except at 12 when I shall always be out: & the reading room I frequented in Gracechurch St. is given up. I must be content with the Telegraph.
[PS.] I shall soon hear from you now dear & I begin to be impatient for news of you. I have left out many things which I will put into my next. Ever affy
[Enclosed memorandum of Helen Taylor's account]
|Balance end of March —
|£ 15.11.8
|July div. on consols —
|Brighton div. —
|19. 5 —
|S. Western do —
|10. 4.6
|N. Western do —
|10. 4.6
|Cash, (Nov.25) —
|January div. on consols —
|36.11 —
|13Probably Peppercorne and Price, stock and share brokers, 2 Royal Exchange Buildings.
|14Probably a contribution to the Society for Promoting the Employment of Women, founded in 1859 by Jessie Boucherette and Adelaide Proctor.
|Cheque to Hajji —
|40.— —
|do to [Peppercorne?]13
|do Empl. of Women14
|5 — —
|244. 7.6
|88. 3.10
|Deduct cheque to J.S.M.
|30 — —
|Balance in hand
|58. 3.10
Your second letter has just come, dear, your first having arrived yesterday. I need not say how glad I was to receive them. All they tell is satisfactory except the delay in the sawing, which is shameful, as the man got on considerably faster with the former one, in spite of the fêtes, and himself spontaneously told me the day before I left, that it would be done on Thursday. I do not suppose the words Concession Perpétuelle need necessarily be on the monument,2 but I do not know, and I suppose we need not decide till we can ask Pascal or somebody who does know. I was very much interested by the rose plantations and the jonquils. Here there are no signs of spring except a little green on the honeysuckle in a hedge near Plaistow. The weather is excessively wet: yesterday it rained so incessantly till late in the afternoon that I only got out late to Deptford to order potatoes. Saturday was the only really fine day and that was beautiful. I think the scenery here & that at Avignon are exactly suited to make each other more thoroughly appreciated. Here the green, the majestic trees, and the beautiful irregular shining & gleaming outline of the masses of wood, seem all the more beautiful for being so unlike Edition: current; Page: [664] the beauties of atmosphere and form at our other home. I have not been in town again since I wrote, though I should have gone yesterday but for the rain, & I shall go today chiefly to see various people at the I[ndia] House beginning with Willoughby.3 I told you I had seen Coulson. I have not yet taken my second pill, but shall take it tonight. I have hardly had a vestige of indigestion all the time till yesterday evening, when I had a good deal: the direct effect of the pill I suppose had worn itself out, & it had not yet sufficiently acted as an alterative. I could not expect that it should. The experience thus far is very satisfactory. I omitted to tell you that I was weighed the day after my arrival, & had gained some pounds since we left England. As for the plants—the mere preliminary sorting, which every former year has been done in one evening, took four of above six hours each, & the best part of yesterday forenoon: but yesterday evening I got down the first parcel of the herbarium & got on pretty well, having got half through it. I find it extremely interesting but rather bodily fatiguing, as it is any thing but sedentary work. In the "Saturday" I have just got through June. There are many things in it which I should not have liked to miss seeing, though very few that tend to raise the writers in my estimation. I have read nothing else except glancing through one number of Macmillan—which seems to me not at all worth taking. It seems both poor & dull except a tolerable political article by Masson,4 & there is an elaborate review of Tennyson's last publication by Ludlow,5 (the sometime Christian Socialist, & writer of a bad book about India)6 making out to the writer's entire satisfaction that the four Idyls are the most splendidly moral & impressing work of the age, chiefly on the point of conjugal infidelity. It is hardly worth sending, at most worth bringing, but Fraser has just come in & shall be sent as soon as read, for it contains Hare's paper (under a better title).7 I shall be glad to subscribe for Spencer's large programme of intended works,8 though I think it rather too ambitious a one. I have had a note from Bain saying that he is to be at home till the 6th & will put off going if I cannot come before, but I must try to do so though I grudge all time taken from the reading & the plants at present. I get on well with Edition: current; Page: [665] Hadji, who is less silent than usual though he never speaks about his own concerns. I suppose Ellen9 has given him some taste for neatness, for one day when I left the room untidy I found on coming in that he had arranged everything with quite studious tidiness. He has got on a little with music & his practicing is now quite tolerable. Tell me dear directly you get tired & wish me back. I do not say ennuyé for I know you never can be that. Ever affectionately
Your bulletin of progress has followed me here, where however I am only for a short time. It is, I think, very satisfactory, and I have no fear that the plan2 will fail to make progress if a quiet agitation is kept up on the subject. I hope your paper in Fraser3 will be soon followed up by another4 of a more distinctly practical character. The effect of the present one is I think a little damaged by the introduction of so much of other people's generalities which (especially those of Carlyle)5 are associated in most minds with anything rather than a plan admitting of actual legislative realization. The same generalities shaped in your own mind and clothed in your own language (which would not have precluded using the authority of the men as far as available) would have had the practical remedial principles much more distinctly imbedded in them and would therefore have made more of the impression which is desirable. I am feeling strongly on this point through the evidence which is always coming before us of the obtuseness of the English practical intellect when any new details are concerned, and the utter absence of Conservative principles among the professed Conservatives. Witness the reform article in the last Quarterly,6 which will not condescend even to discuss the representation of minorities. The suggestion about forming a Edition: current; Page: [666] Committee may prove useful when we have a sufficient number of the right names to put on it—which I hope we shall have by & by.
Your nice letter came by the second post yesterday, just as I was on the point of going out: three letters in three successive days. How does it happen that you get my letters regularly on the second day instead of the third? you answered my Thursday's on Saty & my Saturday's on Monday. Do the letters no longer remain a day at Paris? or does the favour of the Director abridge the delay at Avignon? Now for business. I find that, probably by my own fault, I misunderstood the point on which Girling had given an opinion, opposed to Suter's. It was, the stability of the kitchen wall as now shored up, which G. from his experience guarantees, while S. according to Hadji wants to have a job there. The suggestion of the iron bar to support the arch above the darling's window came from Suter, & it can, as I & also Hadji conceive it, only be put up from inside. That being the case, what had better be done? Had it better wait altogether till you are here also? Say what you think and feel as best. If needful I will have a fire in the room and remain in it all the time; which would I hope prevent mischief though not obviate the desecration about which I also feel very strongly. Doubtless the job Ross proposes can be done wholly from without, and to this we shall probably come ultimately (viz. next summer) if not to worse, for the house seems at least to be in a more precarious state than it has ever yet been. I will do, in regard to it, exactly what you think best. I do not expect any danger before, at soonest the end of another dry summer.—Mrs Goodenough is to come on Saturday. Eliz. says if she could not have had her, she, knowing your unwillingness to have a stranger, would have gone on as well as she could without. But it seems fair that she should have help once a week in the cleaning.—I have been in town once since I last wrote, doing one or two little jobs, & seeing India House people, which has brought on me the (agreeable) task of reading several very good papers of Willoughby's. He & all I have seen are in a high state of dissatisfaction, & every fresh thing I hear of Wood shews more Edition: current; Page: [667] & more how much ground there is for it. I would rather have to do with any public affairs now than with India. There is nothing new to say about my health. I have taken the second pill & shall take the third tomorrow. I am in the middle of my second packet and of the Caryophylleae. You can trace my progress in Babington,2 the order of the families being the same. The Cruciferae alone took more than a whole evening, but they contained one or two difficult genera, having got through which, & also the troublesome Helianthemums, amounts to a considerable progress. In the Saturdays I have just finished July 16. The best service they have rendered is by being always strenuous for arming, & against Louis Napoleon, but in doing so they have become anti-French to a degree I do not like—though some of them write candidly enough too on the French people. While I am writing a Times has come from Wray with a message that I can now have one. Thanks dear for your kind feeling about it. The fact is I have been so immersed in last year's S. Review politics that a glance at the Telegraph has generally been enough for me hitherto. Hare's paper in Fraser3 rather disappoints me. There is nothing in it that lowers my opinion of his mind, but it is ineffective. On a subject which ought to be studiously presented in the most eminently practical light, his paper is overlaid with quotations of rhapsody from Carlyle & generalities from Maurice & Ruskin, as applicable to any other subject as to this. I have not yet read any more of Fraser, but will lose no time in doing so. I have desired Wray to post the February number of the Englishwoman's Journal to you: I have read no more of McMillan yet. I found the Westminster at Galignani's, so perhaps it would not have been stopt if it had been sent to Avignon. I do not know if I mentioned that I glanced (at Galignani's) at the article in the Quarterly on reform.4 They made a good deal of use & mention of the pamphlet (last spring)5 though they adopted nothing of what it proposed—but they made no use of the ballot part, for though they liked the conclusion, the premises I presume were too un-Tory for them. I was struck with the de haut en bas manner in which they set aside as not worth even consideration any plan for representing minorities. What an illustration such things give of the low state of the general intellect. Is it not surprising that Conservatives have no sense or appreciation of Conservative principles? Conservatism with us means a blind opposition to change. I know no Conservatives who are really so but the Saturday reviewers whose adherence is to principles of stability & principles of unjust domination so far as now practically maintainable, but who have no mere instinctive attachment to details Edition: current; Page: [668] as they are. N. B. To shew our preference for openness I shew Haji your letters. This put me into a dilemma with the last, but on reflection I thought you would not dislike his seeing the few words about him. If I was wrong, say so. I shall see if he shews me your letters to him: if not, I shall shew no more of mine. He did not shew me M. L.'s6 letter, though he told me she had asked him to lend money.—February opened with a beautiful day of hard frost, & there has been a little snow today. Sundridge Park was lovely & Camden too in spite of the new villas. ever affectionately J.S.M.
I received your note, and by the same post your letter from Avignon with its inclosure. I need hardly say I should be happy to hear from Mr Fawcett, and as to my occupations here I can have none more important than to aid you and him in any mode in my power. I am doubtful about the move you now propose. It seems to me of the utmost importance not to begin with the Lords or in any quarter under suspicion of Toryism. Those who wish not for the equal rights of all but for the despotism of the numerical majority will be only too ready to run down the plan as a fetch of Tory Anti Reform. It is not at all Tory, though, in the best sense, Conservative, and having also the advantage of being a strict logical corollary from the broadest principles of Democracy it ought not to throw away that advantage. If we only are unguarded enough to give any handle for representing it as anti-democratic we shall throw away all our best chances. I think we should rather strive to bring the plan and its recommendations forcibly before individuals of position and influence, & among these Lords Lyndhurst & Brougham2 hold a high rank. With respect to Lord Grey,3 if the question were, who is likeliest in the H. of Lords to see the merits of the plan, and seeing them to do his duty towards it, I should name him without hesitation, but it would be most undesirable that he should identify himself with it early, as he has got so confirmed a character for being crotchetty and unpractical, i.e. (being interpreted) for having no following, that people think they may dismiss anything at once of which he is the most prominent supporter. Any public move should, I am convinced, go to the Commons first, and should turn the Liberal side of the Edition: current; Page: [669] scheme outwards, shewing the other side afterwards.—I have received this morning a note from Mr A. F. Mayo. He says "I am happy to find that Mr Hare's plan is becoming more talked about. Mr Dilwyn,4 M. P. for Swansea, whom I have been endeavouring to stimulate for months, has at length made a speech in public at Swansea on the subject. It is a pity that Mr Hare did not state his Act synthetically and in order at the beginning of his work." I give this last opinion for quantum valeat. Pray consider me always at your call while I remain here. I am often in town between 12 and 4 and could call on you in York Street to talk over matters if you are there and at liberty. It is certainly very desirable to make use of the present reform discussions for agitating on so great a principle of reform. The best mode of doing it would depend on the strength we can count on. I will suggest to Mayo to communicate with you. I am not at present in the way of sounding many people. We can count on Bain, and, I should think, Helps.5 While I am writing a note has come in from Mr Fawcett. I am glad he is going to see Lord Stanley. Out of office6 Lord S. will not feel tongue tied, and his advocacy would give both Radical and Conservative support. I am also very glad to find both that Lord Grey approves and that he declines to initiate.
I found your letter yesterday, dear, when I came in at five o'clock, & by the same post a note from Hare, who had just heard from Parker of my arrival. I agree entirely in every word you say on that subject & shall write to him accordingly. Most of all do I agree that on no account ought the plan to be propounded under Tory auspices. This morning a note has come in from Mayo (who sent us the Law Magazine). Among other things he says "I am happy to find that Mr Hare's plan is becoming more talked about. Mr Dilwyn, Edition: current; Page: [670] M. P. for Swansea, whom I have been endeavouring to stimulate for months, has at length made a speech in public at Swansea on the subject." This is encouragement to go on propagandizing. Mayo also says that before I mentioned Bain's book2 he had read it with very great approval & had been propagandizing at the Athenaeum for that too. A man with so much zeal should be kept up with. I went yesterday to Richmond to see Bain. The place is getting overrun with building, especially the high ground where the Rose hotel stands, & the whole neighbourhood of the Sheen road (I mean the one which goes down hill from opposite the Star). The space between that road & the park wall is almost entirely filled up, & Bain's is one of the tiny houses in that slip of ground close to the park wall. He still requires crutches3 (for his stick is almost a crutch) & though he walks with it as fast as I do, he cannot keep up very long, so we had only about an hour's walk, but the walk to & from Greenwich & between London bridge & Waterloo make up a decent day's exercise. He is in good spirits on things in general. His first volume has sold 640 in all, & the deficit is now made up. The sale made a start on the publication of the second vol. & another start when the article in the Edin. came out. The second has only yet sold 320, but it is sure to equal the first. He has finished & is sending to Parker the first of his papers on Phrenology which are to appear in Fraser in alternate months.4 He has been staying with Grote & has seen some of his writing on Plato which from the account he gives of it must be very good, & considerably outspoken. He also says that Grote has benefitted much in health by his Surrey house & is getting, for the first time, fond of the country. Their lease in Savile Row is expiring & they do not mean to have any permanent house in town now. All this is good, as it will both prolong his life & increase the amount of work he will do. Of the six people who have the appointment of the St Andrews professor, the two clever men, Ferrier & Tulloch,5 are decidedly for Bain, which is creditable to both & quite remarkably so to Tulloch. Of the four mediocrities, two are against him, the other two doubtful, and likely I should think to vote against him. But he has a chance of a professorship at Aberdeen,6 a more important university: for when the arrangements for the union of the two Colleges there take effect,7 there will be (if all goes as is projected) a separation of the Logic from the Moral Philosophy Chair, & the former will be in the gift of the government, in which case if Lewis8 is still in office Bain considers himself almost sure of the appointment.—I send you two letters relating to Mr Austin. Edition: current; Page: [671] The first, from Miss Duff Gordon9 (whom I never saw, unless perhaps when a child) had been left for me at Prescott's. I was glad it was from her rather than from her mother or grandmother, & answered it by another about the same length, expressing regret & respect for him & mentioning nobody else. Yesterday evening came one from Mrs Austin which seems to involve the unpleasant necessity of writing to her.10 My principal anxiety is to do as exactly as I am able what would have been done if I had still my darling to guide me, not only for the reasons which exist in all cases, but for the special one that all relations with persons should shew her to be as much present as before. I inclose for your remarks & suggestions what I think of saying.—Archdeacon Allen11 having heard that I am here, has written another letter very like the first, wishes I would visit him next summer, is thinking of going again to London on Feb. 13 for convocation & asks to be allowed to call on me to which I must of course assent. I have a letter from Hardy12 who appears to be making a search himself for M. de Gaillard,13 but as yet without success: I suppose I must write to M. de Gaillard to report progress. So much for general news. For myself, my improvement in digestion has by no means kept up to the degree it attained at first. Last night I took the third pill & will report further in next letter. I have finished Fraser—it is a goodish number & I will send it at latest on Monday: In the Saturdays I have got to August 6, & in the plants to the end of Thalamiflorae & am going to begin my great heap of Leguminosae, which I shall get quickly through as I do not think any of them will require any redetermining.—About the gilding we need not, as you say, decide yet.14 My feeling is strongly against it, as being less grave, & more gaudy & ostentatious, besides being considerably less legible. But we must consider the pros & cons. I am glad the dames were less tiresome than we feared, though their quality of mind was well illustrated by your anecdote. Even provincial women of their station in England would perhaps have been a little better. I am sorry for the man's accident with the thorn. I hope it can be poulticed out. your ever affectionate
P.S. A note has just come in from that fine fellow Fawcett, & one from Lady Duff Gordon.15 The last would make the letter too heavy & contains nothing that need affect the present question. I will write again immediately.
It gave me great pleasure to hear from you. One who, suffering under such a calamity as yours,2 has the heart and energy to commence a career of vigorous exertion for great public objects, must be a man of the right mould, and I am proud of being thought to have been of any use to such a man.
You have selected well the object of your present efforts. We can never do enough in pressing forward Mr. Hare's plan, which, in my deliberate belief, contains the true solution of the political difficulties of the future. It is an uphill race, and a race against time, for if the American form of democracy overtakes us first, the majority will no more relax their despotism than a single despot would. But our only chance is to come forward as Liberals, carrying out the Democratic idea, not as Conservatives, resisting it. To become identified with Toryism would be fatal to the plan, for the Conservative is not only the least powerful, but the silliest party. It has been left behind by all its able men, and the others are daily shewing that of all politicians the Conservatives are the least alive to any real principles of conservation. It is they—it is Disraeli, the Quarterly Review, &c, who go out of their way to insult the idea of representation of minorities. It will be, as it has been through all my lifetime, that in every real pinch, Radicals have had to do duty as Conservatives, often in opposition to those they were attempting to save.
As you so clearly see, Mr. Hare, like many discoverers, has much to learn in the art of presenting his discoveries with a view to popular effect; but he seems truly anxious for advice and help, and we who did not make the discoveries must aid them in that way. I need hardly say that I shall be glad to read the paper you propose sending,3 and to give my opinion on it. I beg that I may be counted on for cooperation whenever wanted, though I am glad that the very useful task of visiting public men, for which I have decidedly no vocation, is undertaken by yourself.
To say the truth, I am rather glad than otherwise that Lord Grey,4 though approving the plan, is unwilling to move actively at present in its favour. It is important at starting to keep clear of those who have the unenviable reputatation of being crotchetty. The case is different with Lord Stanley,4 who would be the most valuable single accession we could obtain. He is reserved, and will not shew the extent of the impression which may be made, but he will take the book and study it, and some day you will see the result.Edition: current; Page: [673]
As I am often in town, and you probably are never at Blackheath, I should be happy to call on you as often as wanted instead of giving you the trouble of coming on purpose.
I received your Thursday evening letter yesterday & was made very glad by hearing that you are in good spirits & that the work is proceeding satisfactorily. I will make a translation carefully & send it.2 I was in hopes that by this time you would have told me what you think had better be done about the repairs here. Yesterday while I was out a man (a builder) came on the part of Ross, without any definite message, & after looking at the outside, told Haji there was no danger: but I think Suter must look at the great crack near the window of your room. I have been waiting till I hear from you. I write but a short letter this time because I wish to inclose two notes from Fawcett which I think will interest you. I shall meet him & Hare tomorrow & as I shall also see Coulson, there will be much to write to you next morning. I have been doing better again as to health, though I have still occasionally a little acidity even while taking the mercury. I do not think I shall recover a perfectly healthy digestion quickly. My chronic ailments however slight are always a long while in going away. I took the fourth pill last night, so it is time to see Coulson. I am getting on pretty well with the plants. I have finished Leguminosae, Rosaceae & others, & of the fourth packet there remain only the stonecrops & saxifrages, both of which are rather numerous. You should see how plethoric the packets have grown, & what difficulty I now have in making their girdles meet. After next spring's acquisitions I shall have to build my barns bigger. Of the Saturdays I have just finished Sept. 10. They are wonderfully steady in their quality in all respects. They are certainly however a proof of the influence of my writings, for besides that they are continually referring to me by name, I continually detect the influence of some idea they have lately got from the Dissertations. They must also get me plenty of readers, for they are always treating me & my influence as something Edition: current; Page: [674] of very great importance. Did you notice the death of Dr Todd?3 another great loss. I hope the Evening Mail will give a letter in the Times today from the editor of the Gazette de Nice4 who says the French papers misrepresent & suppress everything & that the anti-annexation party there & in Savoy must look to the English papers only to make the truth known. I send, by this post, Fraser, which I am ashamed to say I forgot yesterday. I saw two days ago the first flowers, being a primrose & some winter aconite: not here, but in the Christmas rose garden in the Park. The laurustinus everywhere is quite as backward as it was this day fortnight at Avignon, & there is not a crocus or a snowdrop visible. your ever affectionate
From my remembrance of the Lectures2 I should say, without hesitation—If a bookseller will undertake them, publish them all, with only such revision as may remove needless repetitions & so far reduce the bulk. They are much more calculated for popularity than they would have been if he had, by rewriting, made them (as he would have done) more elaborate, & more difficult reading. I am persuaded that his reputation with all students of his subject would sell the book (if not too voluminous) & I am sure the book would greatly extend his reputation. But you cannot have better advisers than Sir J.R. and Sir G.L.3 I am sorry to say I have sought in vain for my copy of the Tables.4
I received your letters yesterday & today. I am very glad that you thought I hit the right mark in my answer2 to that letter. I sent it yesterday, except that for the sentence about the Tables, I had to substitute "I am sorry to say that I have sought in vain for my copy of the Tables." It must be in some recess of the boxroom, not to be found without a general clearance. She will be able to get one from somebody else. You have very truly characterized her letter; which is like all her letters & if you saw her daughter's you would say she has an apt pupil. Only the daughter has the grace to mention my loss though in a very inadequate manner. As it requires no answer I will not send it but bring it. I cannot translate the inscription at all satisfactorily,3 but for the mere formal purpose a general indication of the sense, even though in bad French, is sufficient. There is no reason at all against putting up the two lower blocks as soon as they are ready. I shall most likely have finished everything else by the end of my second fortnight with Coulson. I am deep in the Compositae, and though I have not yet got through half the number of packets, I am more than half through the work, as after Labiatae the new acquisitions (except the Grasses) are much more thinly scattered. In the Saturdays I am at October 29. But neither of these would keep me here, as you know. Suter has been here; the iron bar is to be outside, & he not only thinks that there is no necessity to put it up at once, but thinks it better not. The great crack in your bedroom he will send a man on Monday to stop. About seeing Hare, Fawcett, &c. you will have seen that I took your advice before I received it. The truth is that though I detest society for society's sake yet when I can do anything for the public objects I care about by seeing & talking with people I do not dislike it. At the moment of going to do it, I feel it a bore, just as I do taking a walk or anything else that I must & ought to do when not wishing to do it. But I believe the little additional activity & change of excitement does me good, & that it is better for me to try to serve my opinions in other ways as well as with a pen in my hand. With such people as Hare & Fawcett it is a pleasure, & ranks with going to the Pol. Econ. Club (for which by the by, Fawcett asked me to propose him as a member, or rather expressed a wish to be a member & I offered to propose him, which I have done).4 Archd. Allen's visit would be a bore, but he has written to say he is not coming to town at present. He renews his invitation very warmly. This morning the papers have Gladstone's budget.5 It is a great success. He turns Edition: current; Page: [676] the edge of the argument about relieving the rich instead of the poor, by raising the income tax to tenpence, & he takes off the paper duty,6 & all the remaining protecting duties, making a clean sweep of all duties on manufactures, on butter, cheese, eggs &c. & leaves a number of other duties, giving for the first time a really good fiscal system. He says wine will still be more heavily taxed than beer, therefore there need be no reduction of the malt tax. The French concessions are larger & better than anybody knew of. His speech was one of principle, good throughout, & pointing out many bad effects to which I had not adverted as produced by the taxes which the French treaty takes off.7 All other wines are to have the same benefit as French. Except a little complaint from the representatives of the silk interest, nobody but the wise Mr Bentinck ventured to complain.8 They only asked for time to consider, & I have no doubt that the intending opponents find their hopes dashed. It will be supported I think zealously by all liberals. Very judiciously they mean to finish this before bringing in the Reform Bill,9 lest the enemy should defeat this by forcing them to dissolve on that.—I hope the really touching appeal to the English public from a number of Savoyards, in yesterday's Times,10 is in the Evening Mail. There was also a good leading article on that topic.11 Mayo has written again & has sent a paper of notes & criticisms on Bain's book of which as I told you he is a great admirer.12 I bought at the railway station to read in my journeys to & fro, a shilling copy of Emerson's Representative Men.13 It seems to me very empty mouthing, with only a foundation of a few vague & general ideas which are right or wrong according as they are taken. Is it a pair of revolvers you want? I ask, because one hears of a pair of pistols (or as the old phrase is, a brace) but revolvers I only remember hearing of in the singular number, & I should think one of their advantages must be that there is no need for people to burthen themselves with two. We have bitter cold weather again here: it was hard frost all day yesterday, to the benefit however of my walk. I have kept my word with you in letter & spirit: according to weather I walk (at five miles an hour) for two hours or for between three & four: the only exception (not counting the days of going to town, when I have plenty of exercise) was the rainy day I told you of, when I went only to Deptford. There are now a few nice snowdrops Edition: current; Page: [677] out near the door but no crocuses. I think the Vichy water is doing me good. It is only like very pure water with a slightly pungent taste.
With all help from Boyer's dictionary14 I cannot find an equivalent for "earnest" for "instructor in wisdom" or for what we mean by "goodness." If you can amend any part of it, do.
Your nice letter of Saturday came yesterday, but not till after I had gone out, though I staid till I thought the time for the second post had passed. I quite understand the way you are affected by spending hours in the company of such people. You do not mean to keep up both the Demoiselles & the Dames? It is a great happiness to me to be a support to you under depression, but it would be very painful to me to think that I should always continue to be the only one, as I must necessarily fail you some day & I can never be at ease unless, either by means of persons or of pursuits you have some other resource besides me, and I am sure my own darling would feel as I do. But to speak of things more germane to the present moment. Suter came yesterday & the crack in your room was filled up. Everything has thus been done which seems necessary or desirable for the moment. His man, who seems intelligent, thinks that the sinking is caused by the foundation not going down below the sand, which being washed away more & more by the landsprings, the wall goes on sinking. In what I said about the shrubs I did not mean to suggest doing anything now. I am even disposed not to have any of them propped up (for they are not actually levelled) & as for cutting them, nothing would induce me to have the dearest one's shrubs touched without the presence of some one who understands the subject & knows what she would have liked: It is easy however if you think it desirable, to have a few stakes put in the most important places. But it cannot well be done yet for it is hard frost, with cold wind, & snow on the ground. I was caught yesterday Edition: current; Page: [678] in two snow showers. It will be a late spring in both countries evidently. The birds who had begun singing have left off, though there are great numbers of them. The other day looking out of my bedroom window I perceived five bulfinches perched on the thorn near the dining room window.—There have been two notes from Gregson. He seems to take matters very slackly: The first said that he & Cooper thought it was best to sell the securities.2 The second, in answer to an enquiry by Haji, said that he had not seen the will, but only extracts furnished by Cooper & that these satisfied him that the third share is divisible now. I tried to see him to get some explanation of this vagueness, but as he was not at home, I wrote a note to him to say that I think it important that he should see, not extracts, but the will itself, as the difference of opinion between Cooper & his principal makes it necessary to have the best evidence. Meanwhile Haji is under an impression that the consols are already divided, as he says there are £200 more to his account than would be the case otherwise. This ought not to have been done with Gregson's consent, unless after further communication with you.—Fawcett has sent his MS. pamphlet this morning.3 It is very well done, but I can suggest some additions & a few omissions of things which would be better away, & I am writing to him to say that I will call tomorrow to talk about it. He will probably send over to Hare who is close by. I am glad you thought my advice & notions on the former occasion correct. I had not shewn Fawcett's letters to Haji but I have shewn him this one. I have not sent Lady D[uff] G[ordon]'s letter as it is heavy, but I shall know by your next whether you would like it sent. I have got through the Compositae & am in Campanulaceae. In the Saturdays I have got into the middle of December. Although not so quick in perceiving such things as dear one was I cannot help seeing continual marks that some of the writers have taken their cue from the Liberty & the Dissertations. A very favorable notice of the Diss. in a Bradford paper has been sent,4 & there is one of the Liberty in a large quarterly review called the London Review5 which I found here, & which had got to a 25th number without my even knowing of its existence. As to health I think I am going on very well. I seldom have any acidity now, but I do not yet feel confidence that after eight pills I shall be able to get on without medicine. I shall see what Coulson says. I do not think of seeing either Clark or Ramadge this time. The success of the Edition: current; Page: [679] Budget seems as far as I can judge to be complete.6 There is something going on about Savoy & Nice, which has induced our Government to ask Kinglake7 to put off his motion for the present. There is another notability dead, Sir W. Napier, aged 74.8 How is poor little Bruno? Another pet, little Goldie, keeps singing very loud in the kitchen. Tell me anything you would like me to bring when I come. You spoke of bulbs, & roots from Halley. It will soon be time to get them. Shall I bring Macmillan? It is hardly worthwhile if we have but a few days to stay at the little place before going our journey. I will bring the Westr in any case. Your ever affectionate
As there is no letter this morning, dear, I will write without waiting for one. Gregson writes that he has seen the will2 at Doctor's Commons & examined it and that it bears out Cooper's extracts, which however he is not allowed to compare verbatim. The extracts he has sent. They prove that Arthur's3 impression is wrong, & that the time for making the division does not in any way depend on Mrs Hardy's life or death. They do not however clear up all doubt. By the words used, the trustees, after the death of any one of the three legatees, become trustees for that one's sons till of age, & daughters till of age or married: so that in your case & Haji's the trust has expired. But this does not shew that it could not be kept alive by consent, unless there be something in the law which makes this impossible. I shall try to see Gregson to ask this question. But on the whole I am now rather for letting the division take effect. Now that the Birkenhead shares are commuted Edition: current; Page: [680] to Liverpool corporation bonds, I do not know that they are likely to rise by keeping. The following words are from Gregson's note "By it (the will) it is perfectly clear that the children of Mrs Mill became entitled to the principal of one third of the residue immediately on her death. They will also become entitled to a further share on the death of either Mrs Ley or Mr Alfred Hardy without children. The will expressly required that the number of three trustees should always be kept up, which I apprehend has not been done, as I observe that the will was only proved by Mr Harman & Mr Arthur Hardy & not by Mr Booth4 the third executor. It would be proper to see that this is done in order to protect the contingent rights of Mrs Mill's children in the remaining two thirds of the funds" or rather I should say (if at all) their right to a third of those now appropriated to Mrs Hardy.
I had a long talk on Wedy with Fawcett. Hare was not there, but a young Cambridge friend of F. named Wilson5 was there who seems to be intelligent & a warm supporter of the plan. As we had to go over the pamphlet & discuss all points of it, there was little general conversation. I once tried to lead the talk to the subject of women, but nothing came of it. I shall however have plenty of opportunities. This morning F. has sent the MS.6 revised & I shall call on Monday to talk about it further. I have impressed on him that in the present stage the only thing that can usefully be aimed at is to get access to individual minds likely to be influential. I have discouraged sending the pamphlet to any members of parliament but select ones. I have on the other hand suggested sending it with a few words of remark to all who signed the Memorial to Lord Palmerston for an educational suffrage.7 Though that scheme was not a good one, those who signed it were mostly persons of talent or instruction, & they have all given evidence that they want something out of the common line of parliamentary reform & are alive to one of the strong recommendations of Hare's plan. Most, no doubt, will disregard it, but if we can recruit only a few of them, it will be a great gain. F. says that Cairnes (whom he knows) is with us. Mayo has sent his remarks on Bain: they are all on one detached point, & without being striking or very good, they are worth shewing to Bain which I shall do, having Mayo's permission. I have now read up the Saturdays within two numbers. I think they grow worse rather than better, though there are often good things of a kind one finds nowhere else. I am on the point of beginning Labiatae, & I see my way to leaving about Monday week. Haji intends going to Norwich first,8 & following in the middle or at the end of the same week. What is your opinion now about going to Greece? Do you think it would do to cross Italy? I am Edition: current; Page: [681] frightened at the thought of going round by Malta, especially at a stormy season, & I doubt too if there are any regular steamers from Malta to Corfu or Athens. The French steamers to Athens touch I think at Messina but not at Malta. I can perhaps learn this before I go. The frost here may be said to have gone though it still sometimes freezes in the night & is still very cold all day, with continual snow showers (which do not lie) & a great deal of wind. Your ever affectionate J.S.M.
I have just received your Tuesday evening's letter. We have had nothing here comparable to the weather you describe. There has been no snow that has lain, or none of any depth, & skaiting [sic] had only just begun when the thaw came. It was a slow, cold thaw, but the weather is getting daily milder, & yesterday was beautiful. I saw yesterday in Morden road the first crocus. I wrote to you fully yesterday, & I write again today chiefly to say that Ross has been here, with his man, the same whom Haji saw. They both say that the sinking & cracks can only be finally stopped by underpinning the house at the corners. Tudor House, Ross said, was as bad, but it was underpinned & it never sank afterwards. On the other hand, Suter's man told Haji that Powell's2 house had been underpinned long ago & that it did not stop the mischief, which as Powell told Haji has gone so far that he means to leave the house which otherwise he would not. The man said, what I can hardly believe, that it can be done without destroying or much injuring the shrubs: only the rose on the wall nearest the corner must go: I believe there are other stems and roots of roses along the wall though the shrubs hide them. I have asked the man to send a rough estimate of the cost of doing this. The kitchen wall, in the part which has bulged out & is propped up, he says cannot be mended, but only pulled down & rebuilt. Ross, for his part, does not care whether the underpinning is done or no (he avers that there is no danger, as the wall sinks upright) but he cares very much for our having the brickwork of the arch in front taken down & replaced (though it would be evidently absurd to do this with any prospect of more sinking) & he does not seek to disguise that the reason of his caring for this is because Powell's lease expires at Midsummer & people who see the state of our house may be deterred from taking that. So he evidently hopes to get us to do this immediately, in which he will be disappointed.—I have finished the Labiatae & Edition: current; Page: [682] shall certainly be ready to come by the time I mentioned. I am sorry to perceive by your note to Haji that you do not think they will have finished the work before the end of March or beginning of April. This settles the question against Greece, & therefore in favour of Catalonia & the Eastern Pyrenees. In the Saturdays I have overtaken Haji, having only one to read besides the one which came today. On further consideration I inclose Lady D[uff] G[ordon]'s letter. Ever affectionately J.S.M.
Your letter of Friday morning arrived yesterday. Let me first say that there is no shop of Colt's2 from one end to the other of Regent Street. I must therefore go again to town tomorrow & get at the Post Office Directory to trace where it is. I shall then go to the London Library & see if I can find any books worth bringing, though if it is for myself only, I do not think it much worth while. I went over yesterday with Fawcett his pamphlet3 as revised by him, and the alterations which I suggested on his revision. We seemed to agree perfectly, but Hare it seems has not yet seen it. He sent to tell Hare, who came. I like Hare more & more. I like very much the expression of his face. I inclose a note I had just before had from him. The pamphlet is to be sent about privately first & afterwards published. Hare said that Hickson has written to him saying that Rowland Hill some years ago proposed for South Australia the very principle of Hare's plan4 & that Hickson himself had afterwards proposed it to the Commissioners on the Corporation of London, for adoption in the municipal elections there.5 This has suggested to Hare to make a push for trying the plan in that way & he Edition: current; Page: [683] is going to press it upon Ayrton.6 We had a good deal of talk on the women question. They seemed to go so thoroughly with me in feeling, that there was little or no actual discussion which would have shewn whether they enter into every corner of the subject, but it seemed to me that they will go the whole way with us. They warmly assented to my statement that all employments & positions should be open to women & that then each would fall naturally into what it turned out they were fittest for individually. It appears that Fawcett presses the subject on his friends as he does all things which he cares about, & as he noticed the way in which they seem to be afraid of doing anything in the matter for fear of ridicule, Hare said if he were in Parlt he would bring it forward (the question of the suffrage for women, as I understood). Since I finished the Saturday I have been looking through the Reasoner, & nothing in it has struck me so much as the progress making on that question. Continually some new advocate for it is starting up. A Colonel Clinton,7 a great radical who writes letters to the Reasoner & is for plural voting, is strongly for women's suffrage, & there is a curious document called the Belfast Resolutions, professing to have been agreed to at a public meeting at Belfast8 & signed by a Mr Scott as Chairman, in which a whole radical system of government & political economy is elaborately set forth & near the beginning is a demand that all women as well as all men shall not only be electors but eligible to Parliament. Fawcett thinks it a great thing to have had a woman (Miss Craig)9 appointed Secretary to the Social Science Association, & so indeed it is. He says it was done by a most strenuous personal canvass by Miss Parkes10 & others & that now everybody is glad of it, as the duties are done most admirably. So also at some place in the North, I forgot which of the large towns, he says that a woman was with great difficulty got chosen Librarian & that the admirable way in which the office is filled is having the most beneficial effects. Various things he says incline me to attach more importance than I did to what Miss Parkes & her set are doing. He says the E[nglish] W[oman]'s Journal increases in sale & has got into places where it was scouted at first. By the bye he said that Miss Craig got her living at Edinburgh as a needlewoman till Miss Parkes found her out, brought her to Edition: current; Page: [684] London & kept her there till she succeeded in getting this Secretaryship for her.—Politics are satisfactory. The first move against the Commercial Treaty & Budget, headed by Disraeli, was defeated last night by an unexpectedly large majority (between 60 & 70)11 though the Metropolitan members whose election depends on the publicans, are up in arms against opening of the wine licenses & Ayrton, as well as Horsman12 (now grown completely factious) spoke on the Tory side. There is to be another attempt made tonight, on the motion of Du Cane,13 member for Essex, which I hope will fail as ignominiously. The general feeling of the country as far as I can judge, seems right, & I think that a great many Tories must have abstained from voting not to drive the ministry to a dissolution. I saw Coulson yesterday. He recommends to me to take no more mercury, but quinine daily for a week & then to leave off medicine. I am very doubtful whether the mercury has done me any permanent good. Yesterday I had more acidity than I have had for some time. I shall probably have to reconcile myself to having a weak stomach & merely take care not to overload it. Perhaps the excursion may do good. But I hardly like going to Spain after what I read in the papers about the bitter feeling against England there. Still I do not suppose it will affect our comfort in a short tour. I am now here alone, Haji having just left for Norwich,14 not to be back while I remain if I go next Monday. I inclose a note from him. There will be nothing to keep me here. I have got into Monocotyledoneae & into the last but two of the fourteen packets. I do not think I shall bring a hat as I intended. In Spain & the Pyrenees a wideawake15 will do better. Even if we go to Greece I can get a hat at Avignon or Marseilles. I shall be glad to bring MacMillan. It improves a little as it goes on, & there is an article by Maurice on Macaulay,16 this month, which I like. The Social Science Association has sent a thick volume of its Transactions17 from which I find that my name is on the Council. I think I ought to write to have it taken off, especially after what I wrote to the Secretary of this very Association about the other subject.18 It is still cold here. Yesterday the frost & snow seemed to have come back. But there is nothing like what you tell me there still is at Avignon. The prospect of a very late spring makes me care much less about the retardation of a mere short excursion, our principal object Edition: current; Page: [685] having been frustrated. An Avignon winter judging from our experience is anything but what one means by a Southern one. What Gregson said about filling up the trustees turns out to be bosh, as the stock certificates he himself gave me are signed by Harman in person & by Cooper in behalf of Booth. Ever your affectionate
I will bring 2 doz. sherry from Paris. We shall not, I suppose, want any tea. I have answered Guillaumin's19 letter.
Your Sunday evening's letter arrived yesterday. Your report about the progress of the work seems favorable but if we do not leave before April, it would entirely negative going to Greece as far as I alone am concerned. I should arrive rather later than I did before;2 I wish to see both the places I did not then see, & those I did: we should inevitably do it more slowly; & it is impossible to stay a day later than I did, on account of the heat. Still, if you decidedly preferred that journey to any other, I should do so too, for I have no very strong attraction towards the alternatives, which are Catalonia & the Pyrenees, or some part of Italy or Sicily. If you would rather travel in Greece before trying tent life in the East, we might, next winter, go to Egypt first, & then to Greece, postponing Palestine & Syria. By that however we should lose the approach by Corfu & the Corinthian Gulf which I very much tiens to shewing you first. The same objection applies to going by Malta, for, judging by the long & detailed list of steamers in Bradshaw's Continental, there is no steamer from Malta or Marseilles to Corfu but only to Syra & Athens. Everybody who sees Greece first by the south coast of the Morea, & Athens, is disappointed. If we go this year it will be best to start from Ancona, stay a week at Corfu, go from there to Athens, then see Attica & the Morea only, which we might do thoroughly, & then return by Italy or by Constantinople as the season, the convenience, or our inclination might determine.—I have bought your revolver. With the case, caps &c. complete it cost £5, & 50 cartridges in addition make three shillings Edition: current; Page: [686] more. It was not too heavy for me to carry home. I hope they won't stop it at the Custom House. I believe importation of arms is prohibited, not to mention that they may think I intend to fire at the Emperor. I made up a list of books for the London Library, but it was not a very attractive one. If they send half a dozen volumes however that will probably be reading enough for the time we want it, especially as I hope to resume writing. It is again hard frost here: should it be so on Monday I shall perhaps be afraid to come. I have been, however, a good deal better these two days. In the plants I have only now the Grasses to go through, as I have not acquired this time any ferns or other cryptogams. I shall like very much to hear an account of your domiciliary visits with the ladies of the Bienfaisance. I have just been reading a manuscript essay on Strikes,3 by Fawcett: it is the best thing I ever read on the subject, with some new lights even to me, & I hope it will be published. I think we may look to him with great hopes (notwithstanding his misfortune) as one of the successors. A propos, the misfortune, according to what Hare tells me, seems to have happened under most painful circumstances. It was the effect of two stray shots from his father's gun: only two, but one went into each eye, breaking the spectacles & no doubt forcing in the broken glass. What a sad concurrence of circumstances was necessary to make one poor man (or rather two) afflicted for life! If the coincidence had been the contrary way, would it not have been thought manifestly providential?—Everything looks well for the Budget,4 for though the Tories are making a distinct party opposition to it, they evidently cannot muster their full strength. But I am sadly afraid the Government may be forced to give up the best provision of all, that which destroys the brewers' public house monopoly; for not only the publican interest is the most powerful, next to the attornies, in all the larger constituencies, but the Teetotallers have with their usual narrow-mindedness come up in great force & are pouring in petitions against what they call a great extension of the trade in intoxicating liquors. By the bye I believe I am very unpopular at present with the teetotallers.5 A correspondent of Holyoake complains that they misunderstand me & think me "opposed to Temperance." I perceive Francis Newman is a leading Maine Edition: current; Page: [687] law man, & writes papers with his name in the Reasoner, in one of which he obliquely glances at me.6 I think, he, like the Saturday reviewers, is among the greatest enemies to our principles that there now are; such will mostly be found among those who agree with us on many details. After your letter I think I may authorize Gregson to consent to Cooper's proposed sale & division. Ever your affte
Your Brighton dividend, received at Prescott's, this time is £26.19.
I write but a few words, dear, as I shall see you so soon. I shall certainly go on Monday evg & consequently arrive on Wednesday by the express at midday. I have finished the plants, & done everything that requires doing, & though it freezes every night rather hard it does not freeze in the day. I am not taking any medicine, & have had very little indigestion since I wrote last. I have certainly gained a good deal by the course of medicine, & perhaps now the excursion will set me up. Your Wednesday's letter came yesterday. I have not heard anything further of or from Ross or his man. If I had seen either of them I should have again repeated that I would do nothing till we return, there being in their opinion & in that of every one else who has been spoken to, no immediate or rather no present danger. If it is desirable to write to Ross, this can as well be done from St Véran. I do not know what you mean by Suter's "job" as the putting up of the iron bar which was what he recommended need not in his opinion be done at present & I do not see why it should not wait till we can decide on everything at once. Gladstone has defeated the second motion of the Tories against the budget by the quite unexpected majority of 116.2 But he has been obliged to limit his measure about licensing to the sale of wine, leaving the beer question as he says to be considered hereafter as a separate subject. I cannot blame him though I am Edition: current; Page: [688] sorry.—Do not feel any anxiety about my passage for there is no wind, to speak of, here. So now dear I leave off, & shall not need to write again before the pleasant moment of seeing you.
It would never for a moment occur to me, seeing what you are in other respects, to regard your loss of sight as excluding you from political life. It could only do so if it had, as in most men it would have done, thrown a damp on your wishes and aspirations. You have only to take every fair opportunity of making yourself known as a public speaker and lecturer. When you have thus proved that you are under no real disqualification, your misfortune will, I am satisfied, be very much in your favour, not only by exciting interest, and neutralizing envy and jealousy, but because it will cause you to be much more and sooner talked about. You will then, I think, have quite as good a chance of being elected to Parliament, as any other man of independent opinions.
I return the pamphlet2 by post. I like the original title best, but either is good. The addition on the back of the title page is very desirable, but instead of "interest in the improvement of the Representation" I would say "interest in improving the quality of the Representation" or, more generally, "in correcting the deficiencies of" &c. or some other and better phrase to distinguish those you address from mere Parliamentary Reformers of the old school.
Parker writes "I am just going to Cambridge, and will see Mr Fawcett and discuss with him further the 'Strikes'paper."3 By this I conclude he thinks you are at Cambridge.4 He does not say when he will be back, but I suppose very soon.
I have marked in pencil on the margin of the proof, a few misprints, and two or three slight alterations or additions which occur to me.
C'est avec grand plaisir que j'ai reçu votre lettre du 8 février. Elle m'a suivi en Angleterre, où j'étais allé pour affaires, et si j'avais eu le temps de m'arrêter à Paris en retournant ici, j'aurais répondu à votre lettre personnellement plutôt que par écrit. Je me promets de profiter à une meilleure occasion de votre invitation aimable et amicale.
Je suis charmé que votre nouveau livre2 soit à la veille de paraître. Je le suis aussi d'apprendre que la traduction aura, à votre airs, l'avantage de l'à propos, et que l'opinion commence à pencher du côté contraire à la centralisation. Je puis le dire sans blesser vos convictions, car vous conviendrez, je pense, qu'en France l'engoûement pour la centralisation a été excessif, comme j'accorde que de notre côté de la Manche on a dormé un peu dans le fanatisme contraire. Du reste, ni votre point de vue ni le mien n'est exclusif, en notre divergence, quoique considérable, repose sur une différence de nuance plutôt que de principe.
M. Guillaumin3 me fit, il y a quelque semaines, la proposition de faire traduire le petit livre par M. Paillottet.4 Je lui fis savoir sans délai que vous aviez bien voulu charger de cette tâche. Je me suis aperçu seulement hier, par le Journal des Economistes, que M. Guillaumin avait eu l'imprudence d'annoncer sa traduction avant de me faire part de son projet. Si vous avez vu l'annonce, vous avez sans doute compris comme la chose s'est passée.
Agréez, mon cher Monsieur, l'expression de ma haute considération et de mes sentiments d'amitié.
I have just heard that Mr Hare, the Charity Commissioner, and author of the remarkable Treatise on Representation, is to be proposed to the Committee Edition: current; Page: [690] of the Athenaeum on the 27th, for selection without ballot.2 If I could be sure that you had read Mr Hare's book it would be quite needless, indeed I should hardly feel at liberty, to express to you any opinion of mine on the subject; but in case you have not, I venture to say that there are few books you would find better worth reading, or which are likely to give you a higher opinion of the author. My own conviction is, that Mr Hare has discovered, what the best political thinkers have rather lamented the want of, than hoped to find—an effectual and practicable mode of preventing numbers, in a popular constitution, from swamping and extinguishing the influence of education and knowledge. Whatever your opinion may be on this point, I feel sure that as a mere specimen of intellectual power applied to the great political question of the modern world, the book would amply repay in pleasure, the time spent in reading it.
Je vous remercie beaucoup de l'envoi de votre nouveau livre.2 C'est un ouvrage très remarquable et qui me paraît même supérieur à celui auquel il fait suite.3 Je pense qu'il fera époque dans la grande discussion de la Centralisation. Vous ne vous attendrez pas, à coup sûr, qu'il n'y ait pas une divergence considérable entre nos opinions. Cependant (comme vous avez dit à propos du livre de la Liberté) je suis plus frappé des coincidences d'opinion que des différences: et je crois que vous eussiez dit cela avec encore plus de raison si vous aviez connu un certain manuscrit inédit que j'ai dans mon portefeuille.4 J'attends avec un vif intérêt l'introduction5 promise dans l'annonce de la Liberté. Je suis plus que curieux de voir de quelle manière vous concevrez la différence entre nos deux manières de penser. Il est au reste très convenable que le plus modéré et le moins fanatique Edition: current; Page: [691] des localistes soit présenté et commenté par le plus philosophe des centralistes.
Je n'entre pas ici dans les questions qui nous séparent et que j'espère discuter avec vous de vive voix. Vous êtes un de ceux avec qui on ne peut que gagner à comparer ses idées. Je donnerai seulement un mot d'éclaircissement sur deux points.
L'un des deux me regarde personnellement. Je n'ai jamais entendu nier l'influence des races. Vous pouvez voir dans mon article sur Michelet6 que j'admets pleinement cette influence. Dans la phrase que vous avez citée, je voulais seulement blâmer une tendance qui existe dans tous les temps mais plus particulièrement dans celui-ci (par suite de la réaction du 19me siècle contre le 18me), c'est celle d'attribuer toutes les variétés dans le caractère des peuples et des individus à des différences indélébiles de nature, sans se demander si les influences de l'éducation et du milieu social et politique n'en donnent pas une explication suffisante. Je ne puis comparer cette tendance qu'à l'habitude qu'avaient les peuples primitifs d'attribuer tout ce qu'on faisait, sans pouvoir dire de qui et comment on avait appris à le faire, à l'inspiration directe d'un dieu. Dans le cas dont il s'agit, savoir celui des différences de caractère entre les peuples celtiques et les peuples anglo-saxons, je crois avec vous que la race y entre pour beaucoup; mais quant à leur goût pour ou contre la centralisation, je vous demanderai si la diversité dans le développement historique de la France et de l'Angleterre dont vous avez fait une esquisse si vraie et si instructive, ne suffisait pas à elle seule comme explication.
L'autre point sur lequel je veux dire un mot, c'est celui-ci. Je reconnais pleinement la tendance que vous signalez dans la législation anglaise vers une centralisation plus grande. Non seulement je reconnais cette tendance, mais encore j'y applaudis même. Mais notez bien que ce mouvement centralisateur est plus utile que nuisible chez nous, justement parce qu'il est en opposition tranchée avec l'esprit du pays. De là il arrive que ces changements si grands en apparence, se réduisent dans la pratique à des proportions presque exiguës. Vous croyez peut-être que l'administration de la charité publique est réellement centralisée chez nous depuis la loi de 1834.7 Eh bien, il n'en est rien. L'immense abus qu'on avait fait du pouvoir local avait tellement effarouché le public qu'il est devenu possible de faire cette loi; mais il n'est pas été possible de l'exécuter: le pouvoir local a fini par regagner sa prédominance sur le pouvoir central; et celui-ci n'a pu conserver ses attributions qu'en les exerçant avec une réserve si excessive qu'elles sont restées plutôt une ressource pour des cas extrêmes qu'un ressort régulier d'administration. Il en sera ainsi Edition: current; Page: [692] pour longtemps de tout ce qu'on tentera chez nous dans le sens de la centralisation. On admettra bien l'intervention du pouvoir central comme remède héroique et passager: on ne l'admettra pas comme régime. Maintenant c'est à réfléchir si ces dictatures momentanées du pouvoir central ne remplissent pas suffisamment les conditions de votre système.—Votre tout dévoué
I was very glad to hear from you, and was much pleased that you are going to lecture on Strikes. Your being urged to do so by Sir J. Shuttleworth,2 and his presence as Chairman,3 take away all appearance of the proceeding's being uncalled for; and anything which tends to make you known as a public speaker without looking like a desire on your part to push yourself into notice, is useful for your ulterior views.
With regard to being examined before the Committee on Strikes,4 I should not have anticipated a much more favorable answer than you received, though I should have expected a civil one. It is contrary to the theory of a Parliamentary Committee to examine witnesses on anything but matters of fact; and it is only because members of parliament are not what they are censés to be, that such a practice could ever have crept in. As it is, I have always felt that there was a sort of impropriety in it, and have avoided rather than sought to be examined on questions of argument and theory, though I have once or twice consented5 when particularly asked to do so by Edition: current; Page: [693] the Chairman of the Committee. In the case of the Corrupt Practices Committee,6 the same reasons do not apply, as inventors may always with propriety offer themselves to explain their plan.
Mr Hare's letter in the Times7 seemed to me a very good move, and I am glad to hear from him that it has met with some response from the press. Mr Martineau's8 is an important adhesion. If he has made up his mind to do all that he can, it will probably be found to be not a little. In your remarks on the impossibility of making any impression in the House of Commons, you must, I think, have overlooked Sir J. Pakington's speech.9 He seemed to me to have sought an occasion for separating himself from Disraeli on the question, and to be quite ready to consider any feasible plan for the representation of minorities. I hope he has your pamphlet,10 but I would not counsel any more direct application to him. There is a great deal in leaving an idea time to crystallize.
I expect to leave Avignon in about a week, after which I must refer you to Parker for my address.
Your letter of the 29th gave me great pleasure. It is very satisfactory that your proposals in the Times2 were so decidedly supported by the Economist,3 Edition: current; Page: [694] and received so much attention from the papers. Several passages in the leading articles of the Times have since pointed, by slight indications, in the direction we wish for.4 Notwithstanding the inaccessibility of members of Parliament to any idea which will not serve for the hustings, the situation seems to me favourable for gaining the attention of leading politicians to such a plan as yours. Did you notice Pakington's speech?5 He ostentatiously separated himself from Disraeli, complimenting Lord J. Russell on the provision in his former bill for representation of minorities (which Disraeli had reproached him for as unconstitutional) and altogether seemed on the lookout for some unobjectionable mode of doing what your plan does in the best of all modes. The foundation is evidently laid for making an impression on his mind. But I would not recommend (unless some special opportunity offers) entering into any communication with him, beyond sending him Mr Fawcett's pamphlet.6 We must be on our guard against the danger of making people feel bored by the subject before they understand it.
What Sir E. Lytton says is true, but not much to the purpose; as he was not asked anything but what was perfectly consistent with his remarks. He was not applied to as a minister, but as one of the leaders of opinion. An important member of parliament has it in his power to help forward materially by incidental notice, ideas with which it may not be yet time for him to identify himself as a practical statesman. And from the tone of Sir E. L's letter7 I should not despair of his doing so in this case, though he will not commit himself beforehand.
I do not like to discourage any move in favour of the plan, but I confess I should not expect that much good could be done at present by any appeals to the inadequately represented places. Any feeling that might be excited, would be sure, I think, to turn itself into a movement for the more practical object of merely obtaining more members: while the plan would be made chiefly known by its least beneficial feature, the increased representation it would give to the large towns. I say this in ignorance of all that may have occurred to you on the other side.
I was glad to hear from Mr Fawcett that Mr Martineau promises to do his utmost in the National.8 That Review is, I believe, a good deal read by a rather advanced order of liberals; and independently of Mr Martineau's own abilities as a reasoner and writer, he is attended by a cortège of younger men who can also use their pens efficiently. His adhesion is very valuable, and Edition: current; Page: [695] tends to hasten the time when you will be able to cite an imposing number of thinkers, differing in other respects, but agreeing in their support of your plan.
I have not yet seen the new Fraser,9 but hope to see it in a day or two. Perhaps if a good article were offered to the Westminster, it would be accepted, but it should be by a new person, if possible. If I were in England, I would try to move Herbert Spencer, but I do not know how he is affected by the plan. Have you any means of knowing?
I expect to leave Avignon about this time next week, but I shall keep Parker informed of my address.
I propose leaving Avignon in a day or two to pass a few weeks or months in the Pyrenees & in Spain—during which time as my address will be frequently changing I had better refer you to Parker for it.
I mentioned in my last letter that I had completed the first draft of the new book.2 I have read since my return here, several things which have interested me, above all Darwin's book.3 It far surpasses my expectation. Though he cannot be said to have proved the truth of his doctrine, he does seem to have proved that it may be true which I take to be as great a triumph as knowledge & ingenuity could possibly achieve on such a question. Certainly nothing can be at first sight more entirely unplausible than his theory & yet after beginning by thinking it impossible, one arrives at something like an actual belief in it, & one certainly does not relapse into complete disbelief.
Another book I have been reading is Baden Powell's last,4 which though much inferior to Darwin is a wonderful book for a clergyman & an Oxford professor5 to write, & remarkable as an exemplification of one form of modern Edition: current; Page: [696] theism. It is curious to see natural theology reverting to the form in which it was conceived by Aristotle6—that it is not what cannot be predicted, but what can, that proves an intelligent agency. There is in Powell's otherwise very consistent system an awkward gap at the point where this doctrine comes face to face with historical Xtianity. What can he mean by holding that miracles are impossible, & yet that those of the new testament may be received as matters of faith, though not of science?7 Is this last a mere saving clause, as when Voltaire said nearly the same thing?8 If so, he must intend it to be seen through, as Voltaire did. But the general tone of his mind, so unlike Voltaire's, makes this improbable.
When you next write I hope to hear that you have quite got rid of your lameness.
[The Letter to William Ellis originally numbered in the sequence here as from Avignon on May 1, 1860, has been transferred to the following year as Letter 488A.]
On returning here after a tour of more than a fortnight I found your letter—and I inclose a few sentences by way of reply to your circular.2 I hope they may suffice, though they are not so good as I could wish, having been written when I was tired and somewhat pressed for time. I am very glad Edition: current; Page: [697] that Lord Grey has got his Committee.3 It enables you, with a favorable Chairman, to bring forward the whole subject with advantages which you might have waited long for.
The mention of your plan in the H. of Commons both by Bulwer4 and by Walter5 will also do good, notwithstanding the disparaging remarks of the latter. As you observe, he rather misses the matter in saying that I think a proposition has only to be logically proved in order to be universally agreed to. What I do think is that when a thing is "logically proved," it is the duty of whoever sees that it is so, to stand up for it, whether it is likely to be agreed to or not. This, however, is a view of obligation which M.P.'s and journalists, being "of the day daily" cannot be expected to understand.
I shall be anxious to hear from you. Please direct Poste Restante Perpignan, Pyrénées Orientales, till further notice.
I beg to acknowledge your letter requesting that I will state my impression respecting the causes of the much greater proportion of parliamentary electors who abstain from exercising the franchise in the large than in the small constituencies.
I am unable to answer this question from experience of my own individual feelings and conduct; since, however imperfectly any of the candidates who offered themselves may have represented my political opinions considered generally, I have not felt myself released from the obligation of voting for that one of them who had most in common with me. But so far as I can form Edition: current; Page: [698] any judgment from the probabilities of the case, and from such opportunities of observation as I have had, I should say that the causes which induce a very great proportion of voters in the numerous constituencies to neglect the exercise of the franchise, are principally two, viz.
1. In the case of the uneducated a habitual indifference to politics, unless in times of great popular excitement, or when some question affecting their class interests or feelings is at stake, or unless they expect to be, in some shape or other, paid for their votes, which they often can be in the smallest, but seldom in the larger constituencies.
2. In the case of the educated, a conviction that any candidate who, in any sufficient degree, represented their sentiments, would not have the smallest chance of being elected. And this state of things is likely, I apprehend, to be permanent, in all constituencies of which the majority are uneducated and give their votes freely; so long as, by an omission in our Constitution as iniquitous as it is impolitic, minorities are denied the right to which they are equally entitled with majorities, of being represented in proportion to their numbers.
Thomas Hare Esq.
I have not yet acknowledged two interesting letters from you, dated the 10th and 17th of April. The last I only received a day or two ago, on returning here from making the circuit of Valencia, Madrid, and Saragossa. It gave me much pleasure to hear that your lecture2 was so successful. It is a great encouragement. Respecting Mr Hare's plan, although Massey's3 move has come to nothing, and I suppose Capt. Gordon4 has abandoned his projected motion, there have been several incidents that are very favourable. The mention Edition: current; Page: [699] by Bulwer and even that by Walter in the H. of Commons5 will be extremely useful, and Lord Grey's Committee with the prospect of Mr Hare's being examined,6 is one of the most fortunate things which could have happened. I received the pamphlet7 but I am sorry to say the Globe8 miscarried. From what you say of it however, there seems to be good fortune in that quarter too. Any newspaper of good circulation which takes up the plan, stamps it in the opinion of commonplace people as at any rate not Utopian, quoiqu'en dise Mr Walter. I still think the two parties will patch up something this year!9 The Lords will alter the bill, and the Commons will accept it altered. Your list of provisions for a temporary Reform Bill is very good, but who will support it? unless Lord Stanley or Pakington take it into their heads that it would be a good compromise, and I fear even they could not carry their party with them. Jones10 I believe to be quite incapable of having a fundamentally new, and at the same time true, idea in Political Economy. His merit was that he called attention to the great variety in the tenures of land as affecting the laws of distribution.
Please direct for the present to Perpignan (Pyrénées Orientales) Poste Restante.
Your letter of April 12 has only just reached me here, and the volume2 you mention has not been forwarded. As I expect to be in England in July I Edition: current; Page: [700] will not expose your book to the risk of loss at the little post office of this remote corner of France. When I return, I will lose no time in reading it. I regret that my absence prevented my seeing you when you were in London, but I hope that I may have at no distant time another opportunity. If, in the meantime, there is anything I can do that would serve you, my publisher Mr Parker (445 West Strand) will forward any letter. I am
Votre bonne et intéressante lettre m'a suivi jusqu'à cet endroit charmant, digne d'une plus grande célébrité qu'il n'a encore acquise.
Il est vrai, comme vous dites, que l'Angleterre n'a plus à lutter contre la tyrannie ou la compression officielle, et en cela elle est sans doute plus avancée que la France—mais de même que beaucoup d'autres progrès, celui-ci promet plus qu'il ne tient. L'opinion a hérité de toutes les autres tyrannies. Son joug paraît léger, parce qu'on ne songe pas ordinairement à lutter contre lui. Il est entré dans les âmes. Tout se fait chez nous par contrainte morale. On trouve tant de petits obstacles à sortir de la voie commune en quoi que ce soit, que peu de monde le fait même en théorie, et il est presque impossible de le faire en pratique. Les classes supérieures, soit par leur position, soit par leur intelligence, n'y songent pas plus que les autres, et c'est ce qui fait que je ne fonde pas sur ces classes autant d'espérance que vous semblez le faire. Toutefois il y a en Angleterre beaucoup de choses qui semblent mortes, mais qui ne font que dormir, et qui sont capables de s'éveiller; témoin la renaissance de l'esprit militaire,2 qui peut-être ne contribuera pas peu à fausser les calculs de l'homme qui gouverne actuellement la France.
Allow me, through you, to offer my grateful acknowledgments to the Council of the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science, for the honour they have done me in nominating me to the distinguished office of President of the Social Economy Department for the next annual meeting of the Association.2 I am, however, under the necessity of declining that honour, as I have occupations in hand which will require all my time and attention during the ensuing autumn; and I feel assured that the Association will have no difficulty in finding some one much better qualified to preside over its deliberations than a person of my little experience in such matters. I am Sir
G. W. Hastings Esq.
&c &c &c
I am glad of the prospect you hold out of my seeing you next week in London. I shall be happy to meet you any day and hour that you may do me the favour to appoint.
Your pamphlet2 (which I liked very much) was so far from having miscarried, that the one you send is the third copy I have received. I am
As I wish in any case to go to town one day this week to see Mr Hare I will if it suits you call on you in Norfolk Street about twelve on Friday. If I do not hear from you, I shall conclude that this arrangement will suit you.
I look forward with much pleasure to seeing you again.
I have been waiting to fix a time for calling on you until I heard on what days Mr Fawcett will be in town. I have just heard from him and have fixed to call on him in Norfolk Street on Friday about twelve. When I have [seen?] him I will call at your office, but if anything should make it inconvenient to you to see me then and there, have no scruple about it, as I can without inconvenience come to town any other day.
Your article2 has interested me very much & its main position is unshakeable, but I suspect we shd differ greatly on a subject into which you Edition: current; Page: [703] do not enter, that of the limitations. Though you do not say so, the whole of your reasoning seems to converge to the conclusion that all Europe (if not the whole human race) will some time or other be brought under one government. That there may one day be a kind of loose federation among the countries of Europe, & a common tribunal to decide their differences, is likely enough. But as for actual incorporation, when there is not identity of language, literature, & historical antecedents, I see no spontaneous tendency to it, nor any likelihood of its being brought about but by that which has produced it heretofore, viz. conquest, which of all tendencies we ought most to execrate.
As you asked me to do so I have made two or three brief notes on particular passages
(a) I would omit the reference to [Roussillon?].3 Réunion does not in French necessarily mean reuniting but simply uniting [. . . ?]
(b) Would it not be better to omit Nice & Savoy, or at least to refer to them in a manner which would not recognize their union with France as an accomplished & irrevocable fact?4
(c) These rivers & mountains do not form any conceivable system of natural boundaries5
(d) Kilometre stones are not milestones & I doubt if St Denis is so much as four miles from Paris.6
(e) The bracketed passage is only true in a very strained sense.
The generalities of Buckle's7 theory are very vulnerable, & I hardly think he could have held by them if any competent person had criticized them before publication. He could have afforded to part with most of them, for the Edition: current; Page: [704] premisses are much broader than was required to support his conclusions, & it is exactly in this unnecessary margin & overplus of premisses that, as it seems to me, the error lies.
[Originally an excerpt from E. T. Cook, The Life of Florence Nightingale (2 vols., London, 1914), was to appear at this point. In the course of printing, however, the full MS has been located. The complete text, correctly dated, is to be found as letter 440A in Appendix II.]
We have got here from Canterbury today, having spent eight hours on foot, walking and botanizing, besides seeing Canterbury Cathedral & Richborough by the way. Though these two days journeys were by far the least promising botanically speaking, of our whole route, we have found a great many plants, and though there is not yet much that is quite new to me, I have filled up an immense number of the gaps in my Kent Flora. But the greatest treat was Canterbury Cathedral. I had not the remotest idea that it was so magnificent. We must go and see it together. It is nearly as fine as the fine foreign cathedrals. The time has passed very pleasantly. Mr Irvine2 is a very agreeable companion and seems to me very sensible and right thinking and feeling on things in general; and with the novelty to me of botanizing with a good botanist & the quantity of botany I learn, no excursion that we do not make together could pass more pleasantly. Tomorrow we shall have a botanical exploration of this very rich neighbourhood, and I expect to get many novelties. We shall I suppose be at Deal tomorrow night and at Dover the next. I shall write to you either tomorrow or next day, probably the latter, as there is a great deal to be done tomorrow & I may be too tired. I am writing this previously to having a 'meat tea'which is going to be an ordinary regimen. Edition: current; Page: [705] N. B. We were out at six this morning, for two hours before breakfast, and shall do the same tomorrow. ever dearest Lily your affectionate
We arrived here at ¼ to 9 tonight, having been on our legs since ¼ past 9 in the morning, besides a short walk before breakfast. So you see we do not lose time. Yesterday and today have been splendid days of walking & botanizing; yesterday was equal in number of new plants to almost any day I ever had even on the Continent & today not very much inferior. I had no idea that Kent was so rich or that there could be such botanizing in it. What contributes as much to make it pleasant is the very great pleasure Mr Irvine takes in it. The country is all new to him and he says he never had so pleasant & altogether so successful an excursion. We expect two more equally good days at Sandgate, Hithe, &c. and in Romney Marsh. I suppose we shall stop tomorrow night at Hithe & have a walk next day before returning to town, but I will write again to tell you for certain at what hour on Saturday I shall arrive. Though the journey is so pleasant I look forward with the greatest pleasure to returning to you and resuming our home life, first at Blackheath, afterwards and better at St Véran. I do not half like amusing myself while you are not even quiet, but fatigued and bored—but I shall soon be back dear. I will not write any more now I have written this to be sure of being in time for tonight's post, as soon as we arrived, or rather as soon as the bag arrived, which this time was later than we were, though we were so late.
I was very glad to hear from you, and to read your MS.2 Not having seen the paper by Dr Whewell to which it replies I cannot judge how far it is a Edition: current; Page: [706] sufficient answer to the particular mode in which he puts the argument. But at all events it contains a great deal of the matter out of which the answer must be made, and I am glad that Macmillan desires a paper of the kind. I have put down a few notes which occurred to me in reading it, but there are none of them to which I attach importance except the one marked (h.)
I return the MS. by this post.
I hope you may not be disappointed in your anticipations of getting some notice taken at Glasgow3 of Mr Hare's plan.
Your note should have been answered sooner, but I was from home when it arrived.
I should most willingly do my best to be of use to you in the matter which you speak of, if you think that I am a suitable person to be consulted about a work of the kind. In one respect indeed I am very well fitted to test the efficacy of your treatise,2 since I probably stand as much in need of conversion Edition: current; Page: [707] as those to whom it is addressed. If in spite of this (or perhaps all the more on that account) you would like me to read and give my opinion on it, I will do so with much pleasure.
I am very happy to hear from yourself that you did not mean to convey impressions which I still think the words of the concluding passage of your Notes are calculated to give.3 I did not myself think you could possibly mean it, since in the same passage you also seem to imply that women should not be excluded by law or usage from the liberty of trying any mode of existence open to men, at their own risk in case of failure. But as the advocates of the "rights of women" contend for no more; and are even, in general, ready to make what appear to me far too great concessions as to the comparative unfitness of women for some occupations, I do not think they can justly be accused of jargon, nor of contending that women ought to do certain things merely because men do them.
Your letter of September 19 gave me much pleasure, because it contained better and more encouraging accounts of your health, and also because it Edition: current; Page: [708] said that things were likely to be made pleasanter to you at the India House by changes in the mode of transacting business.2 I shall be greatly interested by hearing more of these changes, since, as you are aware, I think that the practical goodness of a government depends, much more than is generally supposed, on the forms of business. It is a comfort to hear of any changes for the better. Unfortunately, the deteriorations in the structure of the instrument of Government in detail, which I always feared would follow from the substitution of the traditions of the Government Offices for those of the India House,3 seem to be taking place still more rapidly than I looked for. If the Council at Calcutta is to be abolished, and a Cabinet of Secretaries put in its place, as the newspapers say, and as is too probable, the change will be almost fatal: for the Members of Council are the only high administrative Officers not dependent on the will of the Governor-General, and their Minutes are the only Channel through which an independent and ungarbled opinion necessarily reaches the home authorities. The difficulties of governing India have so much increased, while there is less and less wisdom employed in doing it, that I begin to despair of the whole subject, and almost believe that we are at the beginning of the end.
I have read your Treatise,2 or rather the portion of it which you did me the honour of sending to me. If any part of your object in sending it was to know my opinion as to the desirableness of its being published, I have no difficulty in giving it strongly in the affirmative. There is much in the work which is calculated to do good to many persons besides the artisans to whom it is more especially addressed.3 In point of arrangement indeed, of condensation, and of giving as it were, a keen edge to the argument, it would have been much benefitted by the recasting which you have been prevented from giving to it by a cause4 on all other accounts so much to be lamented. Edition: current; Page: [709] This, however, applies more to the general mode of laying out the argument, than to the details.
With regard to the substance of the book, it is scarcely necessary to say that there is very much of it with which I am in entire agreement and strong sympathy, and when I am not, I neither have any desire to shake your own conviction, if I could suppose myself capable of doing so, nor should I regret the adoption of the same creed by any one to whose intellect and feelings it may be able to recommend itself. It would be a great moral improvement to most persons, be they Christians, Deists, or Atheists, if they firmly believed the world to be under the government of a Being who, willing only good, leaves evil in the world solely in order to stimulate the human faculties by an unremitting struggle against every form of it. In regard however to the effect on my own mind, will you forgive me for saying, that your mode of reconciling the world as we see it with the government of a Perfect Being, though less sophistical than the common modes, and not having as they have the immoral effect of consecrating any forms of avoidable evil as purposes of God, does not, to my apprehension, at all help to remove the difficulty? I tried what I could do with that hypothesis many years ago; that a Perfect Being could do everything except make another perfect being—that the next thing to it was to make a perfectible one—and that perfection could only be achieved by a struggle against evil. But then, a Perfect Being—limited only by this condition, might be expected so to form the world that the struggle against evil should be the greatest possible in extent & intensity; and unhappily our world conforms as little to this character, as to that of a world without evil. If the Divine intention in making man was Effort towards Perfection, the divine purpose is as much frustrated as if its sole aim were human happiness. There is a little of both, but the absence of both is the marked characteristic.
I confess that no religious theory seems to me consistent with the facts of the universe, except (in some form or other) the old one of the two principles. There are many signs, in the structure of the universe, of an intelligent Power wishing well to man and other sentient creatures. I could however shew, not so many perhaps, but quite as decided indications of an intelligent Power or Powers with the contrary propensity. But (not to insist on this) the will of the benevolent Power must find, either in its own incompleteness or in some external circumstances, very serious obstacles to the entire fulfilment of the benevolent purpose. It may be, that the world is a battlefield between a good and a bad power or powers, and that mankind may be capable by sufficiently strenuous cooperation with the good power, of deciding, or at least accelerating, its final victory. I know one man, of great intelligence & high moral principle, who finds satisfaction to his devotional feelings, and support under the evils of life, in the belief of this creed.Edition: current; Page: [710]
Another point on which I cannot agree with you is the opinion that Law, in the sense in which we predicate it of the arrangements of Nature, can only emanate from a Will. This doctrine seems to me to rest solely on the double meaning of the word Law, though that double meaning cannot be more completely and clearly stated than you have done. It is much more natural to the human mind to see a divine will in those events in which it has not yet recognized inflexible constancy of sequence, than in those in which it has. No doubt, this instinctive notion is erroneous; and Will is in its own nature as regular a phenomenon, as much a subject of law, as anything else; but it does seem rather odd that unchangeableness should be the one thing which, to account for its existence, must be referred to a will; Will being, within the limits of our experience, the thing of all others most liable to change. Indeed it cannot be unchangeable unless combined with omnipotence, or at all events with omniscience.
With all that you say in affirmation of the universality of Law, and in refutation of the objections on the subject of Free Will and Necessity, I need hardly say how heartily I agree.
I have made a few cursory remarks in the margin of your book, but what I have now said is the chief part of what I had to say. I do not yet return the volume because, unless what I have said of it takes away your desire to shew me any more of the book, I hope to see the remainder. If so however it should be soon, as I shall leave England for the Continent in about a week.
I have not time or space left to say much on the other subject of our correspondence.5 My opinion of the medical profession is not, I dare say, higher than yours. But it would be dealing very rigorously with the M.D.'s of whom you have so low an opinion, to expect that they should already have made any improvement in medical practice. Neither, when we consider how rare first-rate minds are, was it to be expected, on the doctrine of chances, that the first two or three women who take up medicine should be more than what you say they are, third rate. It is to be expected that they will be pupils at first, & not masters. But the medical profession like others must be reformed Edition: current; Page: [711] from within, under whatever stimulus from without; & it surely has more chance of being so, the more the entrance to it is widened. Neither does the moral right of women to admission into the profession, at all depend on the likelihood of their being the first to reform it. On this point, however, we are agreed.
I should have been very sorry to miss reading the sequel of your book.2 If when I had only read the first volume I was very desirous that it should be published, I am much more so after reading the second, as the exhibition it contains of what life is in this country among the classes in easy circumstances, being so earnestly and feelingly, and many parts of it so forcibly done, and so evidently the result of personal observation is at once a testimony that ought not to be lost, & an appeal of an unusually telling kind on a subject which it is very difficult to induce people to open their eyes to. And though the things into which are put the best of one's heart & mind never do all the good which, to one's own feelings, seems to lie in them, few books have a better chance than this of doing some good, and that too in a variety of ways. I should not feel any doubt about it if the book were published with your name. Indeed, the mere fact that these are the opinions of such a woman as all the world knows you to be, is a fact which it would be of as much use to the world to know, as almost anything which could at this time be told to it.
I have seldom felt less inclined to criticize than in reading this book; and moreover I have said in my former letter the substance of nearly all the criticism I should have to make. There is however a new point of difference between us, sufficiently a matter of principle to be worth mentioning to you. In one, and only one of your inferences from the doctrine (improperly called) of necessity, I do not agree; it is when you say that there ought to be no punishment (only reformatory discipline) and even no blame. It seems to me that on the principles of your Treatise, retaliation from others for injuries consciously and intentionally done them, is one of these natural consequences Edition: current; Page: [712] of ill doing, which you yourself hold to be the proper discipline both of the individual and of the race. With many minds, punishment is the only one of the natural consequences of guilt, which is capable of making any impression on them. In such cases, punishment is the sole means available for beginning the reformation of the criminal; and the fear of similar punishment is the only inducement which deters many really no better than himself from doing acts to others which would not only deprive them of their own happiness, but thwart all their attempts to do good to themselves & others. With regard to the legitimacy of resentment: a thoroughly evil will, though I well know that it does not come into existence without a cause, seems to me not the less on that account an object of aversion; and a strong indignation against wrong is so inseparable from any strong personal feeling on the subject of wrong and right, that it does not seem to me possible, even if desirable, to get rid of the one, without, to a great degree, losing the other. I write these things for your consideration, and not as pretending to lay down the law on the subject to any one, much less to you.
My address while abroad will be Saint-Véran, près Avignon, Vaucluse, France, and I am very far from wishing that you should do as Frederic's General said he would.3
I have returned your Treatise today by the Book Post. I am
Voici bien longtemps que je n'ai pas reçu de vos nouvelles quoique ce soit moi qui ai écrit la dernière lettre. Ce m'est toujours un grand plaisir d'avoir une lettre de vous et je le désire d'autant plus car dans un temps comme celui-ci,2 on ne sait jamais à quel endroit un patriote Edition: current; Page: [713] Italien peut s'être porté ni dans quelle situation il est. Je voudrais aussi m'entretenir avec vous sur les grands événements de cette année. Vous aviez bien prédit l'année passée que les Italiens feraient aujourd'hui de plus grandes choses qu'en 1848, bien que celles-là suffisent assurément pour la gloire éternelle de ceux qui y ont pris part. Vous avez le droit d'être fier de votre pays: aussi est-il, comme vous voyez admiré par l'Europe et les Anglais même qui sont difficiles en cette matière le reconnaissent comme digne d'être libre. Il est vrai que ceux, qui ont tout préparé pendant dix ans, qui ont entretenu le feu sacré par les seuls moyens alors practicables, Mazzini et ses amis, n'éprouvent pas encore la justice qu'ils méritent.3 Cela était inévitable, et ils ont, je crois, assez de grandeur d'âme pour s'y résigner. Je sais par ma propre expérience, ayant toujours avoué sur bien des sujets des opinions qu'on appelle extrêmes, que ce sont ceux-là qui font accepter par les gens de la foule les opinions avancées immédiatement praticables, en leur donnant la satisfaction de se croire dans le juste milieu, et d'avoir d'autres sur qui se décharger du reproche d'être des exaltés ou des exagérés. Maintenant l'avenir est à vous, pourvu toutefois que vous ne provoquiez pas un conflit prématuré avec l'Autriche,4 dans des conditions où vous ne pourriez vaincre que par l'appui d'une puissance étrangère. Peutêtre le prix que cette puissance a exigé de son intervention en 18595 a été presque vrai bonheur pour l'Italie, en la dégageant de tout lien de reconnaissance et en ôtant à un monarque absolu l'influence que, plus désintéressé en apparence, il eût obtenue sur l'esprit public de votre pays. C'est à l'œuvre d'organisation que je vous attends maintenant. Il y aura de grandes difficultés à la fusion de tant de peuples, tous Italiens, mais différents par leurs antécédents et par leurs mœurs; et de plus grandes encore à la profonde rénovation morale dont la population de la moitié méridionale de l'Italie a besoin. Mais vous avez aussi de grandes ressources dans l'enthousiasme général, dans le prestige d'un grand homme,6 dans celui d'un roi fidèle à la liberté,7 et surtout dans le génie Italien qui à aucune époque n'a manqué quelque déplorable que fût d'ailleurs la situation. L'année prochaine sera pour ceux qui pensent, un chapitre de l'histoire tout aussi intéressant que celle qui vient de s'écouler. J'ai grande confiance dans le bon sens dont la partie avancée de l'Italie a fait preuve dans les circonstances présentes, et dans la haute capacité gouvernementale qui a toujours été moins rare en Italie qu'ailleurs.
Si cette lettre vous parvient, donnez moi je vous prie, de vos nouvelles et croyez toujours à mon dévouement et à ma véritable sympathie.
I would with great pleasure accede to your proposal with respect to a reprint of the chapter on the Futurity of the Labouring Classes for separate sale,2 if it rested with me to do so. The current edition however of the Pol. Economy is the property of the publisher Mr Parker, and he alone has the power of authorizing what you propose. Your application therefore should be to him, unless you prefer waiting till the present edition is out of print, which it is likely to be, I believe, in a few months. I propose making some additions to the chapter for another edition,3 so as to bring up the facts of Cooperation to the latest date, and if I have anything to say worth saying in the way of advice to Cooperators, that will be, I think, the most suitable occasion.
I am very glad to hear such good news of the progress of Cooperation. The publicity given to the brilliant results of the Rochdale and Leeds experiments, by Mr Holyoake's book,4 Mr Bright's speech,5 and otherwise, was likely to encourage others to do the same. I am
Votre lettre m'est parvenue en même temps que la traduction,2 et si j'ai un peu tardé à y répondre, je vous prie de n'en accuser que mes occupations, car je ne cesse pas de travailler à de nouveaux écrits.Edition: current; Page: [715]
Je ne connais pas de traduction où l'on se soit plus consciencieusement occupé de rendre le sens de l'auteur, non seulement dans toute son exactitude mais dans toute sa force. Cela vaut infiniment mieux qu'une paraphrase fidèle et élégante mais plate, et je vous en sais on ne peut pas plus de gré. Il y a tout au plus cinq ou six endroits où il y a eu de légers malentendus sur le sens de telle ou telle phrase, que je dois attribuer à un défaut de clarté dans l'expression, et qui, du reste, sont très peu importants. Il n'y a que la division en alinéas qui laisse à désirer, et je devine que je dois m'en prendre là dessus à l'imprimeur.
Quant à la préface, j'avais senti qu'elle devait être surtout une critique. Est-il besoin de dire que non seulement je ne m'en plains pas—mais que je l'eûsse au besoin provoquée? Les termes flatteurs dont vous vous servez à mon égard suffiraient pour contenter un amour-propre beaucoup plus exigeant que le mien, et le fait même qu'avec les divergences que vous indiquez, vous avez assez bonne opinion de l'ouvrage pour prendre la peine de le traduire, est lui-même un compliment qui en vaut bien d'autres. Je trouve, au reste, que les grandes reserves que j'ai faites pour les cas où l'on se sert de sa liberté d'une manière nuisible aux autres, répondent suffisamment à une grande partie de vos observations. Je me sens un peu tenté de prendre ma revanche en rendant compte dans quelque revue anglaise de vos deux ouvrages.3 Les questions qui ne peuvent se vuider que par de grandes concessions de part et d'autre, sont celles qui gagnent le plus à une discussion assez prolongée pour devenir serrée.
J'espère, mon cher Monsieur, que nous pourrons causer sur ces matières et sur d'autres en peu de temps, car je me rends en Angleterre au mois prochain. Ce ne sera pas avant le jour que vous désignez pour votre départ de Fontainebleau, mais selon toute probabilité ce sera bientôt après. En attendant donc de vous retrouver à Paris, croyez bien à la sincérité de mon estime et de mon dévouement.
I was unwilling to write to you while all your time and thoughts were required for the contest in Southwark,2 and I have not had time to write any Edition: current; Page: [716] letters since the election until today. I shall be most desirous to hear from you vivâ voce when I come to England, all that there must be to tell. At present I only know what I have read in the Times,3 or rather in the Evening Mail.4 From that, although evidently not favourable to you, I can see that a great point has been gained, that you have made a very favourable impression generally, and that people are familiarized with the idea of you as a candidate. The compliments paid you, and the great support you received, will tell much more for you at any future election, than the preference given by the majority to a more known man5 will tell against you. He little deserves the preference, for his public conduct has always seemed to me anything but honorable to him. Still it is some credit to the Southwark people to have preferred a celebrity, though a second or third rate one, to a local or pothouse candidate, and to have elected him free of expense. You must have done considerable good by standing on the footing of no expenses,6 and going about speaking to them in the way you did. I was all the while wishing greatly that I could have helped you, but I have no power of helping anybody with electors. You will be your own best helper if you go on making yourself known by well-considered writings. I shall like much to see the articles you mention in your last letter.7 I left England at the very beginning of October without having seen Macmillan for that month, but when I return I will make a point of seeing all the numbers which contain anything of yours.
I have not been idle since I came here. I have two things finished,8 one of them a considerable volume and have made good progress with a third.9 I wish, when I leave this world, to carry as few of my thoughts away with me as I can; therefore I go on writing even what I do not mean to publish at present. I expect to be in England soon after the middle of January, when I shall hope for an early opportunity of seeing you.
I am surprised to find on referring to your letter, how long I have suffered it to remain unanswered. I received your paper in the Statistical Society's Journal,2 and was very much pleased with it. On the point raised by Mr Hickson I do not exactly recollect all the reasons he gave. I think the chief of them was, that if a voter was allowed to put down an indefinite number of names, he would generally put the latter part of his list at random, or insert the name desired by anybody who asked him. I do not think this argument valid against such strong reasons as those which tell the other way; but it seems worth considering, not with a view of limiting the contingent votes to a small number, but perhaps of limiting them to tens instead of hundreds. All that occurs to anybody on the details of the subject is worth bringing before you as a suggestion for your judgment. It is necessary to look forward to many unfavorable contingencies, for the purpose of contriving the best means of obviating them. For all means will be used to thwart the benefits of the plan. Political parties, as they now have their candidates, will then have their lists of candidates, to catch the contingent votes. These they will make as long as the law allows, putting the names in the order of their importance to the party: and it is a question whether the unlimited number of votes does not give an advantage to the mere party voters who will vote for the whole list of the party, over the independent thinkers who, besides that they will be divided among themselves, will only find a limited number for whom they can vote with thought and conscience. Does not this seem worth thinking of? I have little doubt that whatever your ultimate judgment may be on the matter, you will have sufficient reason for it. I am
[Here is an interesting remark in a letter to Thornton, in 1860. Thornton had been to see Oxford, and Mill recalls his own visit twenty years before, and says—]
In that same holiday2 I completed the first draft of my Logic, and had, for the first time, the feeling that I had now actually accomplished something—that one certain portion of my life's work was done.
Je viens d'achever la lecture de la correspondance et des opuscules et fragments inédits de Tocqueville.2 J'y ai trouvé à chaque pas de nouvelles preuves de sa haute valeur comme homme et comme esprit, et de la perte irréparable que l'humanité a faite par sa mort prématurée.3 Si même il nous eût été épargné jusqu'à la complétion de son deuxième grand ouvrage!4 A ce propos vous me pardonnerez j'espère, si j'exprime un regret qui, à ce que je crois, sera général, de ce que vous avez poussé un scrupule, d'ailleurs très louable, jusqu'à ne vouloir rien imprimer qui n'eût absolument reçu la dernière touche de l'auteur. Je sais bien la conscience que mettait notre ami à ne donner au public l'expression de sa pensée qu'après qu'il l'eût amenée à la dernière perfection qu'il se sentait capable d'y donner; mais autre chose est de reserver un écrit pour le rendre plus parfait, et autre de vouloir qu'il soit supprimé lorsque le sort a ordonné que le perfectionnement ne puisse plus avoir lieu. Les brouillons même d'un penseur et d'un observateur comme Tocqueville seraient d'un prix inappréciable pour les penseurs à venir, et à moins qu'il ne s'y soit opposé de son vivant, il me semble qu'il n'y aurait pas d'inconvénient à publier ses manuscrits imparfaits en ne les donnant que pour ce qu'ils sont et en conservant scrupuleusement toutes les indications d'une intention de revenir sur un morceau quelconque et d'en soumettre les idées à une vérification ultérieure.
Quant à la correspondance je me réjouis d'apprendre que la partie sans doute très considérable, qui ne pourrait être imprimée quant à présent, est Edition: current; Page: [720] toute prête à l'être en temps convenable.5 Ce que vous en avez pu donner est d'une grande valeur par lui-même, et encore plus en faisant connaître ce qu'a été l'homme. Quelle idée ne se fait-on pas de la face d'intelligence et de la haute vertu de celui qui a su se maintenir comme penseur et comme écrivain dans une élévation si sereine et si impartiale audessus de toutes les misères de notre temps, quand on vient à apprendre que cet esprit si calme n'était rien moins que calme par nature et par tempérament, qu'il était d'un type tout opposé et que cela même faisait la plus grande souffrance de sa vie. C'est une consolation pour ceux à qui sa mémoire est chère, qu'il fut heureux dans sa famille, qu'il eut des amis vrais, et qu'il fut apprécié de son vivant autant que cela puisse jamais arriver à un homme très audessus du vulgaire par l'esprit et par les sentiments.
It is long since I have read anything on the subject of Education which impressed me so much as the facts and ideas contained in your letter to Senior,2 and I wish they were in the hands of every reading and thinking person in the country. Among several points of great practical importance which you have made out by an irresistible weight of evidence, two appear to me to stand in the very highest rank: the equality, if not superiority, in attainments & intelligence, of the short time pupils over the others; and the immense advantage, both in efficiency & economy of large over small school districts. These results of experience, the first of which was so unexpected as to amount to a discovery, afford the means of overcoming the two principal obstacles to the efforts of the Government and of individuals for the improvement of popular education, namely, the early withdrawal of the children from school owing to the demand of parents for their labour, and the impossibility of obtaining, or, if obtained, of keeping, schoolmasters of a high average of excellence. You have put it in the power of any Education Minister who avails himself of the results of your inquiries, to elevate the general standard of popular improvement to a height & with a rapidity which have hitherto Edition: current; Page: [721] seemed quite hopeless. Too much cannot be done to give publicity to matter so valuable. I am
J'ai reçue l'Illustration2 et la Presse,3 qui sont très satisfaisantes, et dont j'ai trop tardé à vous remercier. Quant à l'article de la Revue des Deux Mondes,4 ne vous donnez pas la peine de l'envoyer. Je suis abonné à la Revue. Il est vrai que je ne la reçois qu'à Avignon, mais j'ai le moyen de la voir ici.
Je suis très sensible à l'intérêt amical que vous témoignez pour tout ce qui peut me faire plaisir.
Je songe toujours à faire un article sur vos deux ouvrages.5 A présent j'ai sous presse un volume sur le Gouvernement Réprésentatif, où je m'occupe entr'autres choses de la Centralisation au point de vue du dernier chapitre de mes Principes d'Economie Politique, auquel vous avez bien voulu donner votre approbation.
Ma fille et moi vous prions de nous rappeler au souvenir bienveillant de Madame Dupont-White et de Mesdemoiselles vos filles.
L'article de la Revue Nationale2 est très satisfaisant en ce qui me regarde, Edition: current; Page: [722] mais il vous traite avec injustice, surtout quand il trouve que vous ne m'êtes pas assez favorable. Vous m'avez traité le mieux possible, et je préfère être présenté aux lecteurs français par un traducteur qui n'est pas un simple partisan. En cela, je suis conséquent avec ce qui est dit dans le livre même, sur l'avantage de mettre les opinions divergentes en face l'une de l'autre.
L'article de M. Taine3 est un chef d'œuvre en fait de compte rendu. On n'a jamais présenté les doctrines de mon Système de Logique avec une intelligence aussi approfondie et un aussi parfait ensemble.
Ce que vous me dites sur l'état des esprits en France, m'intéresse extrèmement. Malgré tous les obstacles, il me semble que les choses prennent déjà en France un meilleur aspect. Il y a, du moins pour le moment, une liberté de discussion véritable, et cela ne peut manquer d'ébranler la torpeur générale qui était le plus grand fléau du régime actuel. Si l'empereur ne se dégoûte pas de l'expérience qu'il tente en ce moment, c'est qu'il aura pris son parti d'essayer de se réconcilier un peu avec les amis les moins exigeants de la liberté.
Je ne me suis pas occupé du budget des cultes4 dans mon nouveau livre, le regardant comme n'étant pas précisément une question de gouvernement représentatif. Du reste, j'aurais de la peine à me prononcer là dessus en thèse générale. C'est, il me semble, surtout une question de temps et de lieu.
Veuillez offrir à Madame Dupont White et à vos demoiselles mes hommages respectueux. Ma fille vous prie de la rappeler à leur souvenir amical.
Quoique je n'aie jusqu'à présent l'honneur de vous connaître que par vos écrits, vous ne trouverez, j'espère, pas déplacé que je vous exprime la très grande satisfaction personnelle, aussi bien qu'admiration désintéressée, que m'a fait éprouver le compte que vous avez bien voulu rendre de mon système de logique dans la Revue des Deux Mondes.2 On ne saurait donner, en peu de Edition: current; Page: [723] pages, une idée plus exacte et plus complète du contenu de ce livre, comme corps de doctrine philosophique. J'ajoute qu'il était impossible de présenter aux lecteurs français cet ensemble d'opinions, de manière à lui attirer davantage leur attention, et c'est ce qui importe le plus à un penseur.
Quant à la critique que vous avez faite du point de vue psychologique qui caractérise l'ouvrage, il ne m'appartient point de la juger. Seulement je crois que vous vous trompez en regardant ce point de vue comme particulièrement anglais. Il le fut dans la première moitié du XVIIIe siècle, à partir de Locke, et jusqu'à la réaction contre Hume. Cette réaction, commencée en Écosse, a revêtu depuis longtemps la forme germanique, et a fini par tout envahir. Quand j'ai écrit mon livre, j'étais à peu près seul de mon opinion; et bien que ma manière de voir ait trouvé un degré de sympathie auquel je ne m'attendais nullement, on compte encore en Angleterre vingt philosophes a priori et spiritualistes contre chaque partisan de la doctrine de l'expérience. Pendant toute la durée de notre réaction de soixante-dix ans, on a regardé ici la philosophie de l'expérience comme française, de même que vous la qualifiez d'anglaise. A mon avis, on s'est trompé de part et d'autre. Les deux systèmes se suivent par la loi des réactions dans toutes les parties du monde. En effet, l'Allemagne se tourne aujourd'hui vers la doctrine a posteriori. Seulement les différents pays ne coïncident exactement ni dans les révolutions ni dans les contre-révolutions.
Veuillez agréer, monsieur, l'expression de mon véritable respect et de ma considération la plus distinguée.
Rien ne me saurait être plus agréable que de vous avoir pour traducteur de mon nouveau livre.2 Vous n'aurez qu'à vous entendre là dessus avec M. Guillaumin, qui vient de demander et d'obtenir mon autorisation pour en publier une traduction.
Nous sommes tous deux très sensibles aux souvenirs amicaux de votre famille, et aux amitiés dont elle ne cesse pas de nous combler. Nous comptons sur une prochaine visite à Fontainebleau; seulement nous n'aurons pas le temps de nous arrêter cette fois-ci en route, ne faisant qu'un très court séjour en France.Edition: current; Page: [724]
Agréez, avec mes salutations amicales, l'expression de mon sincère dévoûement.
Je vous remercie de l'envoi du Journal des Débats.2 L'article de M. Baudrillart3 fait beaucoup d'honneur au livre, et doit servir notablement le succès de la traduction.
Je suis charmé que vous donniez une si pleine adhésion à mon autre livre,4 et que vous vouliez bien le traduire. Quant à la préface, je suis sûr qu'elle n'eût pas manqué de m'être agréable, quel que fût le nombre "de si et de mais" qu'elle pût contenir. Et quand je prendrai la revanche dont vous parlez, j'espère bien avoir auprès de vous un succès pareil. J'ai écrit au directeur de la Revue d'Edinbourg pour lui proposer un article sur vos deux ouvrages.5 S'il accepte, je m'en occuperai dès mon retour en Angleterre. Je lirais volontiers le livre de M. Odilon-Barrot6 en vue de cet article, mais il ne me sera utile que lorsque je commence à travailler sur la question et il vaudra mieux que je le prenne à Londres, ou en passant par Paris.
Ma fille se rappelle au bon souvenir de Madame Dupont-White et de vos demoiselles, et je vous prie de leur offrir mes hommages respectueux, et de croire à mes sentiments amicaux et à mon dévouement.
Your letter, which has followed me here, reminds me that I Edition: current; Page: [725] have not yet thanked you for your last publication.2 I have read it, as I had done all your others, with great interest. The line of usefulness you have chosen for yourself is as difficult and quite as important as any other, and you have given it the dignity of an apostolate. With respect to the criticisms and suggestions you invite, I have so little of the appropriate experience compared with yourself, that what I can offer does not amount to much. Besides, you are daily bringing all that you do to the best and only effectual test, actual practice. The only criticism which occurs to me in reference to this little book is, that the answers and remarks which you assign to the boys might perhaps with advantage be put into more eloquent language, knowing as I do the efficacy which your teaching possesses for extracting from the minds of pupils thoughts which hardly anyone would suppose them capable of. I have full faith in all that you say in the Preface, but the scientific and somewhat recondite language in which your boys express themselves, gives an air of improbability to the conversations which they need not necessarily have. With regard to the rest of your letter, I need hardly say that your approval of what I write gives me much pleasure. I have always looked upon you as one of my public, both for old friendship's sake, and because you are a student of the same subjects as myself. There are enough of people now who praise my writings with exaggeration, without being at all competent to judge of them. But though these are the persons I write to benefit, they are not (it is unnecessary to say) those whose praise, unless as a means to that object, gives me any satisfaction.
M. Dupont White, whom you probably know, at least by reputation, has lately published two books (or written one book in two parts) entitled L'Individu et l'État & La Centralisation.2 These from their merit & the sort of theoretic & scientific character which he has endeavoured to give them Edition: current; Page: [726] afford a good occasion for bringing the whole question of the limits of governmental action under discussion. M. D. W. takes decidedly the governmental side, a thing now rather uncommon among thinking men, even in France: & as the things he says in favour of centralization are about the best that can be said for it, there would be some use in a review3 which should concede the portion of truth contained in them & at the same time bring forward the still more important truths which as stated by him they contradict.
If you would like such an article from me I would try to write it, & would send it to you some time in the course of this summer or autumn. I could include M. Odilon Barrot's new book on Centralisation4 if after reading it I should find that it affords good additional material for an article.
There are two other purposes for which I have been wishing to write to you—one is to recommend a contributor, the other a book. The contributor is Professor Cliffe Leslie of Belfast. He is probably already known to you as a man of an extensive range of thought & acquirements & a clear effective & popular writer—but he is modest & thinks he requires a recommendation & though the offer to give him one came from myself it was warmly accepted by him. The book which I wish to mention to you is a new life of Savonarola by Pasquale Villari,5 professor of history at Pisa, a valued friend of mine. Besides being a very interesting chapter of history which contains much new information interestingly told, the book places the character of Savonarola in a new light, shews him to have been the most enlightened lover of liberty & one of the wisest practical politicians of his time. A person sufficiently acquainted with the religious & political history of Italy at that period could write a review of it which I shd think would be very interesting to many readers of the Edinburgh. Not having that necessary qualification I do not offer to do it myself.
You cannot do better than place your papers in Mr Crompton's2 hands as he is your trustee, and you have more confidence in him than in Mr Gregson.3 I know of no reason to distrust Mr Gregson and he still has charge of my legal documents, but this is no reason whatever for not putting yours in Mr Crompton's care. You had better obtain the other Trustee's control and send Edition: current; Page: [727] a letter from him requesting Mr Gregson to deliver your papers to Mr Crompton.
I was aware that you had lost your first child but I did not know that you had now only one. I am sorry that your health is still delicate. From
I am glad that you and Mr Leslie are likely to get on well together,2 and also that you are so well pleased with my book.3 With regard to writing an article for you, I am looking out for a subject that will suit the Review and myself; but on Foreign Policy, I could add little, of a general kind, to what was said in a paper I published a short time ago in Fraser.4 The principles concerned are so mixed up with the specialities of the cases to which they are to be applied, that they can hardly be discussed with fruit unless à propos of some particular application; and at the present moment the only case which offers itself, on which people are not already agreed, is that of Turkey,5 on which I am not master of the details, and in which (as I know by my experience of Oriental nations) details are all-important.
I ought to have acknowledged the receipt of Mr Nisbet's [sic] article.2 But it came in my absence. I had not time to read it immediately on my return, Edition: current; Page: [728] and when I did, I thought it likely that I might see you, or have occasion to write to you on some other matter. I was greatly interested by the article, and thought it a very complete and satisfactory vindication of one of the greatest benefits ever conferred upon Ireland. To me, no vindication was necessary, but I was much gratified by the additional knowledge I obtained of the subject.
No expression of opinion which I have received respecting my book,3 has given me so much pleasure as yours; your adhesion being so much more complete than any knowledge I had of you entitled me to hope for, while that knowledge was quite sufficient to make me feel that there are few persons whose adhesion is more complimentary or more valuable. Such a testimony strengthens my hope that the opinions which I have expressed are not only true, but may, within some assignable length of time, become practical.
What you say of the Irish system of education as a striking example of the right combination of central and local agency, is important, and I should much like to see the illustration fully developed.
Je vous remercie beaucoup de l'envoi de l'article de Monsieur Baudrillart.2 Je l'avais déjà lu grâce au hasard qui m'a fait connaître un négociant d'ici,3 économiste et publiciste, dont les lumières et les opinions dépassent de beaucoup ce que je croyais pouvoir trouver dans l'ancienne ville des papes, et qui est abonné à la Revue Nationale. Je suis de votre avis sur l'article. Personnellement Edition: current; Page: [729] j'ai tout lieu d'en être content; mais M. Baudrillart, ainsi que je le savais déjà, porte l'opinion anti-centralisatrice jusqu'au fanatisme. Lorsque j'ai vu qu'il croyait que la liberté locale eût mieux valu sous le règne d'Acbar4 ou de Charlemagne, je me suis dit—Il n'y a que les Français pour avoir des idées absolues. Cependant je trouve qu'ils sont en train de se corriger de ce défaut, comme les Anglais du défaut contraire.
J'écrivis au directeur de la Revue d'Edinbourg, pour lui proposer un article sur vos deux ouvrages;5 mais il se trouve que le directeur lui même se propose de traiter la Centralisation à propos de l'éducation publique dans son numéro de juillet,6 et à ce que je crains, dans un esprit assez différent du mien. J'attends donc pour voir comment il s'en tirera, et s'il y aura place pour moi après lui. Je n'ai pas encore vu la deuxième édition de votre Centralisation.7 Y avezvous mis du nouveau? Je lirai votre ouvrage de 18468 avec d'autant plus de plaisir, que vous y aurez moins épargné la société actuelle, que je passe pour ne pas estimer beaucoup.
Ma fille est très sensible au bon souvenir de Madame Dupont-White et de vos demoiselles. Je vous prie de me recommander à leur bienveillance, et de croire toujours aux sentiments d'estime et d'amitié de
On returning from the Continent, I have only now found your letter.
It must be flattering to any author, and is most agreeable to myself, that my writings should obtain the favourable opinion of competent judges in the Edition: current; Page: [730] United States, and that I should have been thought of as a fit person to write a treatise on Representative Government specially for that country. I have, however, so many demands upon my time and exertions, that it will not be in my power to undertake what you propose; an inability which I the less regret, as what I could write would be little more than a rather flat repetition of a volume I have very recently published.2
I have the honor to be
My daughter and I thank you very much for your kind invitation, but I am so very busy just now, and have so much occupation awaiting me for some time to come, that I do not like to make any engagement that can possibly be postponed. There is no visit I should like better than the one you kindly propose and a little later in the summer if it should happen to suit you I hope I may have more time at my disposal.
I have written a few additional pages for the new edition,2 to keep up the fight against the objections to the plan. I am continually meeting with proofs of the increased attention—of which these very criticisms are one. The first time I am in the neighbourhood of St. James's Square I will return your interesting Sydney correspondence,3 and bring you a German newspaper containing some things which I think will amuse you.
Your letter of May 28th came while I was abroad, and I have not hitherto had time to make the acknowledgment which is due to the feelings you express and to the considerate and sympathizing view which you take of what I have been endeavouring to do. I am very glad that my treatment of the subject,2 as a general thesis, has obtained so much of your approbation. With regard to its applicability to this country3 and immediately, I am quite alive to the force of many of the considerations which you bring forward. You only state them as misgivings, and as misgivings I share most of them, though probably in a considerably less degree than yourself. On one thing we are almost sure to be agreed: that whenever the movement for organic change recovers strength, which may happen at any time, and is sure to happen at some time, it will make a great practical difference what general theories of constitutional government are then in possession of the minds of cultivated persons. It is as a preparation for that time that my speculations, if they have as much truth in them as you seem to think they have, may be valuable. In the meantime, while they keep up the faith in possibilities of improvement, they tend rather to moderate than to encourage eagerness for immediate and premature changes of a fundamental character. If the opinions make any way, they will influence, more or less, what is done from time to time in the way of partial improvement; and while changes in right directions will be facilitated, the barriers will, I hope, be strengthened against those of a bad tendency. It is not to you that anything need be said on the necessity of keeping a true ideal before one, however widely the state of facts may differ from it, and the extreme peril, both of having a false ideal, and of having no ideal at all, between which states (with a tendency at present towards the latter) politicians both speculative and practical seem to be divided.
I am very sorry to hear that your health imposes on you so much confinement.4 I hope that is the worst of the inconveniences it causes you. I, too, am not likely to forget the old days you remind me of,5 nor any of those with Edition: current; Page: [732] whom I used to discuss and compare notes, so agreeably and usefully to myself. If I have ceased to frequent them, it is not from estrangement, but because society, even of a good kind, does less and less for me; and I have so much to do in the few years of life and health I can look forward to (though my health is now on the whole good), that I really have no time to spare for anything but what is at once absolutely necessary to me, and the only thing besides reading which is a real relaxation, active out-door exercise. I do not however give up hope of again seeing you & to do so will always be a pleasure.
I have my hands so full just now that I shall not for some months be able to undertake any review article, least of all one which would require much reading, and a great deal of careful thinking on a practical subject not familiar to me. Neither do I feel disposed to attempt writing anything comprehensive on the question of national education in the present stage of the discussion. Whether I may be differently inclined some time hence I cannot at present say. But in any case I should not venture to engage myself beforehand. I have however more than one subject in view, which I will mention when I see my way more clearly.
I have read the paper on the ape controversy2 with much interest. I like several of the papers in this number very much; especially the one on Buckle.3 It is the only thing yet written about him which seems to me exactly in the right tone. The article on my own book,4 I can sincerely say, gave me less pleasure by its praises than by its intelligent adhesion to some of the opinions I attach most importance to. I should like much to know, if it be not a secret, the authorship both of that and of the article on Buckle.Edition: current; Page: [733]
I have had some conversation with Mr Cliffe Leslie5 on his proposed article on Income Tax Reform. I think it will be a good one. He will probably set about it as soon as the Report and Evidence are accessible;6 but he does not like the idea of its not appearing till April, and I should certainly think January would be a better time, as giving it a chance of helping to shape the speeches in Parliament or at public meetings, and the newspaper articles, by which alone any impression can be made upon unwilling Finance Ministers.
I was very sorry to hear that the state of your health2 had compelled you to suspend the issue of your "First Principles".3 I sincerely hope that the cause of the interruption has ceased, or will soon do so.
Allow me to thank you for your volume on Education,4 which I have only within the last few days had time to read. It is full of things well worth saying, & contains hardly anything with which I disagree, though I shd sometimes suggest other things as requiring to be taken into consideration along with those on which you lay stress.
As connected with your last chapter,5 some very important & conclusive evidence has been collected by Mr. Chadwick6 (& is now printing by order of Edition: current; Page: [734] the H. of C[ommons]) shewing that the half-time scholars, those who attend school only three hours a day, are not only equal but superior in their attainments to those who attend six hours. I believe we shd hear little of injury to health from over application if people were not kept at one kind of mental work for a longer time than it is possible for them to apply their minds strenuously to it.
I have been in the habit of attributing the diminished strength of constitution of the middle & higher classes (which I believe to be a fact) to a physiological cause not mentioned by you, being the same which explains the strong constitutions of many savage tribes. Formerly all the weakly children died, & the race was kept up solely by means of vigorous specimens. Now, however, vaccinations, & improved bringing up of children, by their very success keep alive to maturity, & enable to become parents, a vast number of persons with naturally weak constitutions. This influence, diffused by intermarriage through the succeeding generations, must necessarily, unless counteracted by powerful causes of an opposite tendency, diminish the average vigour of constitution of the classes in which it occurs.
I am very happy to hear that Mr Grote is getting rapidly well.2
We will come to you on the 21st with pleasure,3 and as I suppose Bain also will go by way of Caterham, I will leave it to him to fix which of the trains you mention will suit him best—both being equally convenient to us. I am
I have read Mr Harrison's letter in the Daily News.2 But I do not agree with him to the extent or in the manner which he seems to suppose. I believe that I agree entirely with the view taken in Mr Fawcett's article.3 But I do so, specifically on the ground stated, I believe, for the first time by him viz. that the power of striking tends to bring about something approximating to what I consider the only right organization of labour, the association of the workpeople with the employers by a participation of profits. I regard the payment of a fixed sum per day as essentially demoralizing, and I disapprove of what the men are doing,4 precisely because as Mr Harrison says they are on the conservative side, standing up for the existing practice, a practice which is making workmen more and more fraudulent in the quality of their labour just as dealers are in that of their goods. I see no hope of improvement but by altering this; and payment by the hour appears to be a step, though but a small one, towards making the pay proportional to the work done. At the same time, I think that the men would be right in standing out for the recognition of a certain length of working day, beyond which the payment per hour should be higher; & that in this way it should be made the interest of the masters, not to overwork the men.
John Chapman Esq.
I have had a visit from a Walachian, Mr Alexandre Pétreskou,2 who has been sent to France and England by his Government to qualify himself for being a Professor of Political Economy. I have advised him to go to the Social Science Meeting3 where he will be able to see and hear much that may be useful to him. Do you intend to be there? If yes, I will ask you to give him a little help which will be the more necessary as, though he speaks French excellently, he is probably no great hand at speaking English. If you are not going, it would oblige me much if you would send any introductions that would be useful to him at Dublin. He is evidently a well informed and very intelligent man, and worth our taking a little trouble for him.
Do you wish your two agricultural papers4 sent to M. de Lavergne,5 or will it be time enough when I pass through in September?
Will you kindly direct the inclosed letter6 to Fawcett and send it, as I have mislaid his Wiltshire address.
Je commencerai par répondre à vos questions.2
Shibboleth,3 page 136, peut se traduire par un quelconque des équivalens que vous proposez. C'est un mot tiré d'une anecdote d'histoire juive, pareille à celle qu'on raconte à l'occasion des Vêpres Siciliennes.4 Les meurtriers palermitains ont (dit-on) reconnu leurs victimes à leur incapacité d'articuler Edition: current; Page: [737] certain mot italien, difficile aux organes français. La Bible dit que le mot Shibboleth a une fois servi aux juifs pour un but social d'une nature semblable. Par suite on a donné ce nom chez nous à tout signe vocal qu'une classe ou un parti exige pour se reconnaître.
Section, mot assez en usage chez les américains, veut dire dans leur langue politique non seulement un parti, mais une subdivision quelconque de la nation. Tout ce qui a un intérêt ou une opinion communs avec lesquels il faut compter, s'appelle une section.
On pourrait traduire stupidest5 (p. 138) par le plus borné. En me servant de ce mot je n'étais pas sans une certaine envie de faire enrager le parti conservateur.
Hobson's choice6 est une expression proverbiale, dont l'origine m'est inconnue. L'alternative indiquée est "that or none": "ce que je vous offre, ou bien rien du tout."
J'aurai, en quelques jours, à vous expédier la seconde édition. Vous n'aurez pas à vous occuper des changemens purement verbaux; et il n'y en a pas d'autres, si ce n'est une courte note au 14me chapitre, et quelques pages ajustées au septième.
Je ne crois pas plus que vous à des projets positifs sur la Sardaigne,7 et je pense même qu'un tel projet ne deviendrait positif que lorsque la réalisation en serait assurée. Je crois seulement qu'il y a quelqu'un qui a les yeux sur tout, et que les agneaux sont tenus à des précautions continues lorsqu'ils ont pour voisin un loup.
Veuillez nous rappeler au bon souvenir de Madame Dupont-White et de vos demoiselles, et agréez mes salutations amicales.
I have had a very interesting conversation with a young Walachian, M. Alexandre Pétreskou, who has been sent to Paris and London by his Government Edition: current; Page: [738] to qualify himself for being a Professor of Political Economy. He knows some of the best Frenchmen, but nobody at all in England. I have advised him to attend the Social Science meeting, and as I suppose you will be there, I hope you will allow me to give him an introduction to you, and recommend him to your good offices. I do not believe he speaks much English, but his French is excellent. He seems both intelligent and well informed, and eager to inform himself still more; and anything we can do for him will be done for the benefit of his countrymen, who have almost everything to learn, but are very desirous to learn it.
I am very busy revising the Logic for a new edition.2
I have not waited all this time to read your MS,2 though press of occupations has delayed my writing to you about it. I think it may be worked up into a most valuable paper and one particularly wanted at the present time. I have been very much struck with the ignorance which, in nearly all the writing which has appeared in England about the American disruption, has been shewn respecting the necessary conditions of American slavery and the transcendant importance of the stake at issue in the present contest. The English organs of opinion cry out for a recognition of the secession, and for letting slavery alone; but slavery will not let freedom alone. As you have shewn, more powerfully than had been done before, American slavery depends upon a perpetual extension of its field; it must go on barbarizing the world more and more, and the Southern states will never consent to a peace without half the unoccupied country, and the power which it would give of unlimited conquest towards the south. Instead of calling on the North to subscribe to this, it would be a case for a crusade of all civilized humanity to prevent it. I think it very important therefore, that in recasting your lectures Edition: current; Page: [739] in the form of an article, you should connect them expressly and openly with the present crisis, and make them, in effect, a pamphlet on that; though without entering into the mere details or personalities of the quarrel. I am convinced that you could make it most telling; and the only thing I should like better is that it should appear with your name, and be written about in many reviews, instead of being contributed to one.
It gave me much pleasure to hear from you again after so long an interval & to receive from you so many expressions of kind and friendly feeling. But I greatly regret that you are suffering so much in health,2 & the more so as the morbid affection which you mention is of a kind to necessitate much temporary forbearance as to mental application, which from the opinion I have of your capacity I consider as a misfortune.
I am sorry you should feel any doubt respecting the interest I must necessarily take in what is occurring in the Austrian Empire. Even in this extraordinary time in which there is scarcely a spot on the globe where some great historical change does not seem to be either dawning or approaching its crisis, I do not know anything more important or more intensely interesting than the progress & chances of the political transformation of Austria. I have read with the greatest pleasure your letters to the Neueste Nachrichten3 & I need say nothing more than that I agree, from beginning to end, in the view you take of the Hungarian question.
I am glad you are not discouraged from prosecuting your translation of the Edition: current; Page: [740] Liberty by the fact of there being another translation in the field.4 You have a full right to state that yours is the translation undertaken with the concurrence & approbation of the author at a time when no other had been announced.
It is a sign of the times that there is a Russian translation of the Liberty published at Leipzig.5 The French translation has been very successful.6
Pray let me hear from you now & then. I shall be here for another month & afterwards at Avignon where I spend fully half the year. Thanks for your kind enquiries about my health. It is now, & generally, very satisfactory.
Je répondrai à vos questions en suivant l'ordre que vous avez suivi.
1°. Je ne sais pas au juste le nombre des électeurs.2 Il n'est pas bien constaté, et d'ailleurs il varie tous les ans. On croit cependant qu'ils sont au nombre d'un million à peu près.
2°. Il n'y avait primitivement dans l'Inde3 la propriété foncière proprement dite que celle des associations ou communautés villageoises. Là où ces communautés existent encore, on leur a conservé leurs droits. Dans une grande partie de l'Inde ces communautés ont disparu. Depuis lors, en certaines provinces il n'existe pas de propriété foncière complète, mais seulement un droit d'occupation permanente, moyennant un paiement annuel au gouvernement, dont le taux est fixé par des baux à long terme; le plus souvent au terme de trente ans. A la fin du bail, l'ancien cultivateur a droit de priorité pour le renouveler. Dans ces provinces, comme dans les provinces à communauté, il y a, comme vous voyez, impossibilité de fait à ce que des Anglais puissent devenir propriétaires fonciers.
Mais il y a une troisième partie du territoire qui comprend le Bengale, le Behar, et en général les plus anciennes possessions de l'Angleterre dans l'Inde: dans celles-là on a reconstitué la propriété, et même la grande propriété Edition: current; Page: [741] à condition seulement d'un paiement annuel à l'Etat, qu'on peut comparer à l'impôt foncier en France, excepté qu'il est ordinairement beaucoup plus considérable. Dans ces provinces-là un Anglais peut devenir propriétaire par contrat à l'amiable en désintéressant les propriétaires actuels. S'il achète une terre, il est tenu, comme de raison, à payer l'impôt. Depuis quelque temps, les acquireurs britanniques demandent qu'il leur soit permis de racheter cet impôt: et c'est là ce qu'ils entendent en disant qu'ils veulent devenir propriétaires.
3°. Vous avez parfaitement bien compris ce que sont les "assessed taxes".4 On pourrait peutêtre les appeler des impôts de consommation. On ne pourrait pas les traduire par taxes établiés.
4°. Les repudiating states5 sont ceux qui ont refusé de reconnaître leurs dettes. Le mot repudiate est leur propre mot. Ils les ont désavouées.
5°. Les élections anglaises ne se faisant pas par la voie du scrutin, les électeurs se présentent à un lieu donné qu'on appelle polling place:6 ils déclarent leur nom et leur vote, qui sont écrits par des poll clerks,7 ceux ci s'assurant en même temps que le nom du votant est dans la liste de ceux qui ont droit de voter au même polling place. L'élection commence et finit par un meeting. Au premier de ces deux meetings on propose les candidats; à celui qui suit l'élection, on en déclare le résultat. Comme ces meetings ont lieu en plein air, on a besoin d'une estrade en bois qu'on appelle hustings.7 L'autorité locale, les candidats, les électeurs qui les proposent, et généralement tous ceux qui ont l'intention de parler, montent sur le hustings pour se faire voir et entendre.
6. Un deadlock8 a lieu lorsque les rouages d'une machine ou les roues de deux voitures s'embrouillent de manière à ne pouvoir se dégager à moins d'être démontées. Impasse est une métaphore différente, mais à peu près équivalente.
Je vous félicite d'être si près de la fin de votre travail. Je lirai votre préface avec le plus grand intérêt.
Pour en venir à la dernière question: nous nous proposons, s'il n'arrive rien d'inattendu, de partir d'ici pour Avignon le soir du 23 et ce serait avec beaucoup de plaisir que nous nous arrêterions pour un jour à Fontainebleau. Nous comptons donc pouvoir arriver à Fontainebleau par quelque train de l'après midi du 24.
Nous nous recommandons tous deux très cordialement aux bons souvenirs de toute votre famille.
I am glad to have had the opportunity of reading your objections to my arguments on the Income Tax;2 and I am always glad to receive and consider intelligent objections from all quarters to any of my opinions. I have often profited very much by such criticisms; but their authors cannot expect that I should have time to answer them; and I hope, therefore, that you will excuse me if I do not discuss your arguments, or point out why they do not, in the smallest degree, alter or shake my opinion. It so happened that none of my cross-examiners in the Committee3 took the same view of the subject which you, and the actuaries, take; and their questions, therefore, drew out very little of what I could have said in opposition to that view. I will merely place before you one form of the argument, which appears to me very simple and conclusive. The actuaries argue that income of equal capitalized value should pay equal amounts to the tax. Granted: that is, equal total amounts. But if these equal total amounts are to be made up by equal annual payments, it is implied that the payments are of equal duration, and the owner of the terminable income would be required to go on paying his quota to the tax after his income had ceased.
If you will only consider what would be the payments required from the two supposed taxpayers if each of them was required or empowered to redeem the tax by paying down a gross sum once for all, you would, I think, see that the opinion of the actuaries has no ground whatever to stand on.
Many thanks for the proof of the second part,2 which I return corrected. I leave England for Avignon on Monday next, when my address will be Saint Véran, Avignon, Vaucluse, France.
I am sorry that I missed you on both the occasions on which I called at your lodgings, and the more so as I am leaving England tomorrow for the winter, and shall therefore have no opportunity of seeing you until my return, if you are still in England at that time. Allow me to thank you for the valuable documents which you did me the favour to send. The reports—I have not yet had time to read the evidence—disclose a state of things among the poorer population, in some respects worse than I should have expected; but it is very satisfactory to find that attention has been so strongly called to the existing evils.2
My address for the present will be, Saint Véran, Avignon, Vaucluse, Edition: current; Page: [744] France, where if there should be any way in which I can be of use to you I hope you will let me know.
Henry Parkes Esq.
I am very glad to receive such a pleasant account of your proceedings at the British Association,2 and glad also to have received it before leaving England. We start for Avignon on Monday, and do not expect to be in England again till after Midsummer, as we meditate a journey for next spring.
I hear you are writing an elementary book on Political Economy.3 Something like a class book on the subject is much wanted, and besides being a useful thing when done, it is a very useful thing to yourself to do, as it is a much more complete exercise of the scientific intellect to construct a treatise on a whole department of knowledge, than to write essays, either scientific or popular, on detached points. My own occupation, however, during this winter, will be of the latter kind, of which I have several subjects. The paper on Utilitarianism which I think I told you of, is coming out in the next three numbers of Fraser.4
In revising my Political Economy for a new edition,5 I have made use of some of your observations on Strikes,6 of course mentioning to whom I am indebted for them. Though they were published anonymously in the Westminster, I hope there is no objection to connecting them with your name. I am
Bien des remercimens pour votre Préface.2 Sans rien dire des choses amicales et flatteuses que vous avez bien voulu y mettre pour moi personnellement, j'ai tout lieu d'être content de cet écrit comme discours préliminaire. Il établit et caractérise vigoureusement les bienfaits de la liberté, et il pose les questions principales du régime représentatif, avec un sentiment très juste de leurs difficultés et des conditions de leur solution. Il y a, en outre, un grand nombre d'observations vraies et fortement exprimées. Je ne vois nul motif de supprimer aucun des passages que vous avez marqués d'une note d'interrogation. Je ne trouve guère, dans l'écrit, d'autre différence sérieuse entre nos opinions que celle qui regarde la doctrine de l'Utile, et je suis bien loin de désirer que vous gardiez le silence sur cette différence. A propos, je publie en ce moment même, dans Fraser's Magazine une exposition sommaire de la doctrine de l'Utile3 comme je l'entends: celle-là, je serais fort curieux de la voir jugée par l'Académie. Quand elle sera complette, elle formera un petit volume dont je me promets de vous faire hommage. Vous verrez là les contorsions que j'ai choisies. Il y a seulement une question de fait où vous me paraissez mal informé. Comme beaucoup de Français, vous semblez être d'avis que l'idée de l'Utile est en Angleterre la philosophie dominante. Il n'en est rien. Je conçois qu'on puisse voir dans cette doctrine une certaine analogie avec l'esprit de la nation anglaise. Mais en fait elle y est, et elle y a presque toujours été, très impopulaire. La plupart des écrivains anglais ne la nient pas seulement, ils l'insultent: et l'école de Bentham a toujours été regardée (je le dis avec regret) comme une insignifiante minorité.
En arrivant ici, j'ai trouvé votre livre sur les relations du Travail avec le Capital.4 Permettez-moi de vous en faire, quoiqu'un peu tard, mon compliment. Cet ouvrage me paraît d'un très grand mérite. Vous y avez montré que pour être Centraliste vous n'en êtes pas moins économiste de la meilleure trempe; très supérieur, ce me semble, à la plupart de ces messieurs dans leur propre spécialité.
Je vous remercie encore de l'envoi du livre sur Phidias.5 Le sujet en est pour moi du plus grand intérêt, comme tout ce qui se rapporte soit aux grandes époques de l'art, soit à celles de l'histoire. J'ai lu avec un grand plaisir, l'année passée, une étude de M. Beulé sur Phidias, dans la Revue des Deux Edition: current; Page: [746] Mondes.6 Je me rejouis de voir que le goût de l'antiquité grecque paraît renaître dans la nouvelle génération en France. Il y a eu dernièrement dans la Revue Nationale un article charmant, et très satisfaisant sous le rapport de la vérité historique, sur la position et le rôle des poëtes à Athènes,7 article auquel la lecture de M. Grote n'a pas été étrangère; et plus récemment encore, un article d'histoire et de critique sur Hyperide,8 qui fait très grand honneur à son auteur.
Ma fille vous prie de la rappeler aux bons souvenirs de Madame Dupont-White et de vos demoiselles. Je vous engage en même temps à leur faire mes hommages, et de croire toujours à mon estime et à mon attachement.
[In 1861, he began to turn his thoughts to a review of Hamilton's Philosophy. Writing to me in November, he says,]
I mean to take up Sir William Hamilton, and try if I can make an article on him for the Westminster.2
[In reference to the argument that an exemption of savings would be an exemption in favour of the rich who can afford to save, at the expense of the Edition: current; Page: [747] poor who cannot, an eminent political economist has suggested to the writer that] the rich get this advantage only in so far as they save, and in so far as they do so, they forego the advantage of being rich, and place themselves on a par with the poor. If a rich man saved all the excess of his income above that of his poor neighbour, he would, in fact, be equally poor, since all the rest of his income would in fact be simply managed for him by the public.2
[A month before,2 he had written to Thornton, in terms that showed how well he had recovered his natural buoyant spirits, and his enjoyment of life.]
Life here is uneventful, and feels like a perpetual holiday. It is one of the great privileges of advanced civilization, that while keeping out of the turmoil and depressing wear of life, one can have brought to one's doors all that is agreeable or stimulating in the activities of the outward world, by newspapers, new books, periodicals, &c. It is, in truth, too self-indulgent a life for any one to allow himself whose duties lie among his fellow-beings, unless, as is fortunately the case with me, they are mostly such as can be better fulfilled at a distance from their society, than in the midst of it.
I am much obliged to you for sending me your article.2 The tone in which you write about the book,3 and the importance which, whether deservedly or Edition: current; Page: [748] not, you attach to it, must tend greatly to increase its influence. I am glad that there are so many points on which we entirely, and heartily, agree. Of those on which we differ, only one is practically important—the extension of the suffrage to women. The fact of their not generally desiring it, instead of an argument against its being given to them, is to my mind one of the strongest reasons to the contrary. For it arises from that entire want of knowledge and interest in politics, and of the very first and most elementary notions of duty to the public, which makes the influence that, as you truly say, they exercise, in 99 cases out of 100 destructive of public virtue in the men connected with them. I do not know how to reconcile your refusal of votes to women because they possess social influence, with the main principle of your system, that of granting plurality of votes on account of, and in proportion to, the social influence already possessed.
On this last subject, I confess, your answer to my objections has not convinced me. I do not well understand the sort of social weight or importance which you appear to contemplate; a sort which has no influence either on people's opinions or on their votes. I do not see how persons whom the democracy, by your supposition, always votes against, can be said to be looked up to by it. Being looked up to in this sense, seems only to mean, being thought to be better off, not better, than other people. And even if it meant the latter, it is surely of more importance to single out, for a superior political position, those who are better, than those who are thought to be so. The former is exactly my plan; for the same general presumptions which must be employed to classify the voters according to their probable degrees of intelligence, correspond almost equally well with their probable degrees of moral trustworthiness also.
What you tell me respecting the North British Review is very satisfactory. It is excellent news that the Free Church party cannot support a Review without the cooperation of persons more liberal than themselves, and better still that one of the organs of opinion has reached the point of discarding routine doctrines in politics, and looking the question, whether universal suffrage shall be made a blessing or a curse, fairly in the face. I wish the conducters of the Review all success and prosperity in their new course, but I am quite unable to accept their proposal of writing a political article for them. My hands are already full, and even if they were not, there are other periodicals which have a prior claim on me.
I have received your letter dated Nov. 19. I certainly think with you that the estimates made by architects, engineers & others should be so drawn up as to distinguish clearly the payments for labour from all other payments, specifying both the quantity of labour & the rate at which it is paid. This is essential to the idea of an estimate. & it is on every account proper that the person who has to pay for the labour should know what he pays for, & at what rate he pays it, & should not be paying contractors' profit when he supposes himself to be paying labourers' wages.
At the same time I shd not be sincere with you if I allowed you to suppose that I attach much importance to this or any such matter of detail as a means of benefiting the labouring classes, or that I look upon questions of wages as capable of being settled in the way of arbitration, on grounds of equity. The insuperable difficulty is that there being no principle of equity to rest the settlement upon, any decision must be arbitrary, dependent on the direction of the judge's sympathies. That the workmen should not starve may be said to be equitable, & also that the employers should get some profit. But between these limits I do not see what standard of equity can possibly be laid down. As long as the employers & their families are able to live better, & expend more on themselves than the labourers & their families, it may always be said that wages are not what they ought equitably to be. I can conceive Socialism, in which the division of the produce of labour is made among all, either according to the rule of equality (Communism) or according to any other general rule which may be considered more just than absolute equality. But under a system of private property in past accumulations in which no general rule can be laid down, I think that to give any one the power of deciding according to his own views of equity without a general rule would only perpetuate & envenom instead of healing the quarrel between capital & labour. The only thing which people will in these circumstances submit to as final, is the law of necessity, that is, the demand & supply of the market, tested (when not otherwise known) by the result of a strike. All that I consider practicable in the present state of society is to strengthen the weaker side in the competition, which can only be done by the prudence, forethought, wise restraint, & habit of cooperation, of the working people themselves.
I am truly glad that matter so important at this time as what you have written on Slavery2 is not to be buried in an anonymous article in a review. It seems to me that what will most help to give a better direction to public opinion, is that persons of talent, the more known and respected the better, should put themselves forward ostensibly, and even what in different circumstances might be called ostentatiously, as champions of the right view of the subject. The abolitionist feelings which were but lately so strong in England cannot have died out; they must be still there, and to rouse them into activity it is perhaps only necessary that the real state of the case should be well brought before them. I shall be only too happy to be associated with you in the demonstration, in the manner you propose. But the passage you think of quoting3 seems to me scarcely fit for the purpose; it is only suited to the expression of individual feelings between friends who think alike on the subject. If I had been writing for publication I should not have used that expression about a crusade without leading the reader up to it by a gradual preparation. I have tried to do this in the inclosed paper,4 which is in the form of a letter to you, and of which you are free to make use in the way you propose or in any other.
As you say, the French are shewing to much greater advantage on this question than the English. The writer in the Revue des Deux Mondes5 deserves all you say of him; he understands the subject and wrote excellently on it in the Revue before the secession. There is in the last number of the Revue Nationale (10th November)6 a noble and stirring article by Pressensé,7 the most distinguished of the French Protestant clergy, and in that character well known to the religious world in England. Have you seen "Un grand peuple qui se reveille" by Agénor de Gasparin?8 I only know it by extracts, but it seems to be very good.Edition: current; Page: [751]
I am happy to find so very near an agreement in our opinions on the utilitarian question. Indeed increased knowledge of each other seems always in our case to disclose fresh points of agreement. I cannot enter into this subject at present, but should like to discuss it with you at some future time. There is to be a third paper in the next number of Fraser,9 on the relation between justice and utility, which will conclude the subject. The mode of treatment suggested in the last page of your letter10 is very much to the purpose, and I should like extremely to see the question handled from that point of view by yourself or by some other competent person.
P.S. Ever since I had the advantage of reading part of your MS. lectures on Slavery, I have been anxious that you should write on the subject, in a manner adapted to the general reader, and with express reference to the American Edition: current; Page: [752] quarrel. Like yourself, I have felt ashamed and grieved at the figure which English public opinion exhibits in the face of mankind at this great crisis of human history.11 The people of this country have amply proved the sincerity and strength of their anti-slavery convictions; and if most of their leading organs now express themselves as if there was no distinction between right and wrong on this momentous subject, it can only be because the public have not yet realized the vastness of the stake which is at issue in the present contest. Had they done so, would our most powerful newspapers be able to argue the question as if the right to rebel in defence of the power to tyrannize, were as sacred as the right of resisting by arms a tyranny practised over ourselves? or as if a community which takes its stand, not upon slavery merely but upon the extension of slavery as the fundamental condition of its existence, and which has broken loose from national ties because it feared lest something might be done to prevent it from carrying this scourge through the whole of the American continent, were a society just like any other—having the same moral rights of every kind, & as fit to take its place in the community of nations, as any body of human beings whatever. It is most deeply to be wished that such a society may be crushed in its commencement, before it has made itself such a pest to the world as to require and justify a general crusade of civilized nations for its suppression.
[He soon abandoned the idea of an article on Sir William Hamilton. In December he said:—]
I have now studied all Sir W. Hamilton's works pretty thoroughly, and see my way to most of what I have got to say respecting him. But I have given up the idea of doing it in anything less than a volume.2 The great recommendation of this project is, that it will enable me to supply what was prudently left deficient in the Logic, and to do the kind of service which I am capable of to rational psychology, namely, to its Polemik.
Les traductions que vous donnez sont toutes deux admissibles surtout la seconde; mais l'une et l'autre sont équivalentes plutôt qu'identiques à l'idée que j'ai voulu exprimer. Il doit y avoir quelqu'expression théologique qui rendrait encore plus exactement ce que j'ai voulu dire. Nous entendons par "the canon of inspiration"2 l'ensemble des Ecritures reconnues révélées. Ce canon a été incomplet aussi longtemps qu'on croyait pouvoir y ajouter des écrits nouveaux. Quand on cessa d'y ajouter, il fut complet.
Je ne sais pas si la traduction de l'Economie Politique, qui fut faite sur la 3me édition, a été ou non, retouchée sur la 4me. Celle-ci du reste est presqu' épuisée et il y aura du nouveau dans la 5me. Mais il n'y aura rien de changé quant au fonds.
Je ne sais pas où en est la 2me édition du représentatif. La préface sera une excellente annonce de la traduction. L'article de Littré,3 dont il m'a parlé, en sera une autre.
Mon écrit sur la Centralisation et sur vos deux volumes est fait et expedié à Reeve.4 Il sera peutêtre trop long pour la Revue d'Edinbourg. Mais je suis sûr de la faire publier quelque part. Je crois que vous n'aurez pas lieu d'en être mécontent, bien que je vous aie passablement maltraité sur plusieurs points.
Ma fille se recommande au bon souvenir de Madame Dupont-White et de vos demoiselles. Je vous prie également de leur offrir mes hommages et de me croire
Your letter shows such openmindedness & candour, & so much desire of truth for its own sake, that I would most gladly do anything I could to help Edition: current; Page: [754] you through your perplexities. But it is not easy for me to do so without knowing more clearly than your letter tells me, what are the historical facts, which it appears to you difficult to account for except on the Xtian theory, and what particular Christian theory it is which you think accounts for them.
I am desirous to explain, that neither in the Logic nor in any other of my publications had I any purpose of undermining Theism; nor, I believe, have most readers of the Logic perceived any such tendency in it. I am far from thinking that it would be a benefit for mankind in general, if without any other change in them, they could be made disbelievers in all religion; nor would I willingly weaken in any person the reverence for Christ, in which I myself very strongly participate. I am an enemy to no religions but those which appear to me to be injurious either to the reasoning powers or the moral sentiments. Among such I am obliged to reckon all those which, while holding that the world was made by a perfectly good Being, declare that Being to be omnipotent; for such persons are obliged to maintain that evil is good. That the world was made by a good & wise Being, is in itself perfectly credible; but if that Being has done, for Man & other creatures the best that it was possible to do, the Maker must have been limited by extremely severe conditions of some sort, whether the limit was set by the power of other & malevolent beings, as held by Zoroaster,2 or as Plato thought, by the intractability of the material.3
That, however, the world was made, in whole or in part, by a powerful Being who cared for man, appears to me, though not proved, yet a very probable hypothesis. Like all enquiries which ascend to a time beyond credible records, & which suppose powers of the existence of which in the historical times we have no evidence, it is, & must remain, as I conceive, uncertain. In this respect it resembles the geological theories respecting the [evolution?] of the earth, or Laplace's hypothetical explanation of the solar system.4 Since you have read the "Logic" as attentively as I perceive you have, you will understand me when I put the argument, such as it is, into an inductive form.
The eye, (let us say), is a very complicated phenomenon; it would be begging the question to call it an instrument. But it consists of many different parts, & these parts being found together, in a number of instances far more Edition: current; Page: [755] than sufficient to eliminate chance, their being found in that particular state of coexistence in combination proves that they are connected through some common cause. Going now a step further & comparing these facts together to ascertain if possible something in which they agree, we can find no single point of agreement except one very striking one, viz., that every one of them contributes to render sight possible. We may therefore conclude that there is some connexion through causation between the sight which is to follow & the cause which preceded & as we say, produced the eye. Induction can carry us no further than this. But the only mode supported by any of the analogies of experience, in which a fact to come can contribute to the production of the fact by which it is itself produced, is by the preconception of that fact & the purpose of producing it in the mind of an intelligent being.
In a case like this where a hypothesis has many strong analogies in its favour, such as have not been, & do not seem capable of being established in favour of any other hypothesis, & when there is not & cannot be any evidence against it, I do not think that we are bound, in regard of logic, to reject it. I consider it a case in which it is allowable for each person to let his belief be affected (if such be the tendency of his mind) by his own emotional needs, & the conditions favourable to his moral culture. If (as is the case with all characters of any elevation) he has privately consecrated an internal altar to an ideal Perfect Being, to whose ideal will he endeavour to conform his own; then disposed as he will naturally be to persuade himself that this ideal Being is an actually existing one there is enough in the course of Nature (when once the idea of Omnipotence is discarded) to give to that belief a considerable degree of support. And the more especially so since if we were made by an Intelligence, that Intelligence has made our nobler capacities of feeling & principles of action, & can scarcely be supposed to have made these unless there had been feelings & principles corresponding to them in his own nature.
This is my position in respect to Theism: I think it a legitimate subject of imagination, & hope, & even belief (not amounting to faith) but not of knowledge.
If now we suppose that God made man & the world, not as he would, but as he could, it might follow as a consequence that man's faculties could only be developed progressively & under many obstructions & the whole course of history would admit of being set forth & explained on that theory. I do not see, however, that the succession of historical events requires any supernatural explanation. We cannot indeed trace its natural laws back to the very beginning, but as far back as we have any record, all that has happened seems perfectly capable of explanation from human & natural causes. Of course I cannot prove this in the compass of a letter; but it is the result to which the study of history leads me. I could hardly recommend to you any Edition: current; Page: [756] one book which treats history from this point of view with much success unless it be Comte's Cours de Phil. Pos.5 of which the concluding volumes are historical but cannot well be appreciated apart from the earlier ones which are scientific. There is much in the book with which I do not agree, but there are few books from which I have learnt so much or which afford more matter calculated to meet the difficulty you meet in explaining history apart from the supernatural.
I shall be happy to hear from you again & to give such further answer as I can to your difficulties. I shall be here till near the end of January, after which I shall be travelling for some months. I am Sir
I received the proof of your article2 only this morning. It is an able & will be a useful paper, & puts some points in a new & forcible way, though I differ from it on several matters of detail & some of principle. The chief of these is the question of exempting savings, on which your arguments have not shaken my conviction. The strongest of them is that a tax on expenditure is unjust to those professional persons who are obliged to spend more than they gain in the early years of their career. It is impossible to answer this argument completely. But the force of it is much weakened by several considerations. In the first place what the professional man is obliged to expend in maintaining himself before his earnings come in, is capital, & as such, would, on my plan, have been previously relieved from the portion of income tax it now pays. The not taxing the capital when it was formed, is an equivalent for taxing it, when it is laid out. In the second place, the tax he pays on this outlay would, if savings were untaxed, be entirely refunded to him by the exemption he would enjoy in the process of replacing the outlay from his subsequent earnings. (This entirely refutes the last sentence of the first par[agraph] of p. 114.) The inconvenience is thus limited to that of making an advance. That is doubtless a special disadvantage. But some inequalities are unavoidable in all modes of taxation; & even your plan would not relieve him from the whole of it, since taxing him on only two thirds of his income would not come up to the requirements of the case of one whose income is less than half of his present expenditure.Edition: current; Page: [757]
I will not go into any of your other arguments on this point except to say that in the note at pp. 114-5 where you reply to the passage from my letter I do not think the words "to the disadvantage of the poor man" state the case fairly.3 In the case supposed, the poor as a body would lose a part of the rich man's income tax & gain the whole of his income.
At p. 99 I think you overstate the case against taxes on articles of general consumption. You say that a duke's family does not consume very much more "of certain things" than an artisan's or a clerk's. Not nearly so much in proportion to their means; but much more absolutely, since they pay for all that is consumed by their servants & dependants.
In the argument at pp. 101 et 109, you argue that it is unjust to tax the owner of a precarious income on the whole of what he receives in a prosperous year, because he cannot afford to spend it all in that year, as he must lay by a part for an unfavorable year. In this of course I agree, but you do not notice what seems the necessary complement of this doctrine, viz. that when the unfavorable year comes, & what was reserved before is brought out for consumption then on the same principle of justice it ought to pay the tax: for in that (the unfavourable) year he can afford to spend more than the year's income.
At p. 109 I do not clearly understand the sentence near the bottom beginning "they may well ask."
P. 113 The concluding paragraph of this page does not seem to me fair to Hubbard.4 His doctrine is that the industrial classes as a body save in the ratio mentioned, (which he thinks he has statistical evidence of) not that every individual among them does so: & that as it is impossible to be just to every individual, we should endeavour to be just to the body as a body.
I do not find anything else that I need touch upon. There are some bad errors of the press, but as the proof seems to be an uncorrected one they have probably been detected by yourself. I will only refer to p. 125 line 2, which is unintelligible, & to the first line of the note at p. 115 where the sense is reversed: it should be by him for the public, instead of "for him by the public."
I have no idea who wrote the review of Austin & Maine in the Edinb.5 The writer does not seem to know much of the subject beyond what he has learnt from the two books he is reviewing. But they are a good foundation of knowledge. I agree entirely with your admiration of Maine & to some extent though not wholly with your criticism on Austin. He was not addressing himself to Edition: current; Page: [758] the public but to students, & that great quantity of repetition has its use. It is like the repetitions in Euclid. It is much oftener wanted by learners than one is apt to suppose & they often have not the patience to go repeatedly over the ground for themselves. I am glad you are writing on the study of Jurisprudence.6
I hope I am not wrong in directing this to Belfast.
I could easily write out an argument & send it to you on the historical evidences of Christianity considered as a supernatural revelation. But as you seem disposed to pursue, for the present, special studies, & in the meanwhile to bear with whatever degree of uncertainty you may be now feeling respecting these great questions, I will only say, that you do not seem to have yet made yourself acquainted with the principles of historical criticism, which are now familiar to advanced historical enquirers throughout Europe; under the application of which the evidences of the supernatural part of Jewish & Xtian history crumble so completely that almost all theologians deserving the name (in Protestant countries) now rest the proof of the divine origin of Xtianity not so much on external evidence as on the intrinsic excellence of its ethics or (as some think) the philosophical truth of its metaphysics.
On the other point referred to in your letter, the incompatibility of omnipotence in the Creator (supposed morally perfect) with the imperfections of the creation, I will observe, that the theory of the fall only makes the contradiction worse: for (quite independently of the Necessarian doctrine of Volition) no good Being would have created mankind with the sure foreknowledge that they would fall, & thereby condemn themselves to eternal perdition. You say that a Being, capable of what I must call this horrible wickedness, may be perfectly good in some higher sense than our faculties are able to conceive: but it must be a sense not merely different, but contrary, to every sense in which goodness has any claim to be loved or reverenced by us. A Being of great but limited power may be forced to tolerate all the misery, Edition: current; Page: [759] all the meanness & all the wickedness which we see, for the sake of ulterior ends. But omnipotence is not restricted to means, since it can attain all its ends without them; if therefore we maintain that an omnipotent & good Being tolerates these things, we must maintain them to be good in themselves, that is, we must (as I said in my former letter) affirm Evil to be Good.
It seems to me anything but a presumption in favour of a religion that "intolerance" is "of the very essence of it."2 Other religions are not correctly described as holding that it is a matter of indifference whether they are believed or not. All religions calling themselves Xtian (not to add Mohamedanism) hold that it is unspeakably important to believe the true religion, & each believes itself to be the true: but the Protestant forms of Xtianity, not claiming for themselves any divinely confirmed infallibility, hold as a principle that the mode in which truth ought to be arrived at & the only legitimate mode of obtaining full assurance of it, is by the operation of the individual reason & conscience: which makes the permission & even encouragement of free enquiry indispensable, in theory at least, however much the contrary may often be the case in practice.
Louis Blanc is coming to dine with us on Sunday, and it would give us great pleasure if you could come and meet him. We dine at five.
The cheque arrived safely yesterday morning.
Il est très flatteur pour moi que la Revue des Deux Mondes éprouve le désir d'avoir de ma prose.2 Cela est si bien à ma convenance que j'ai eu quelquefois l'idée de lui en offrir; mais j'ai tant d'occupations et de projets plus au moins en train d'exécution, qu'il m'est difficile, et même, pour le moment, impossible, de m'engager positivement à rien. A ce propos, ma réponse à la Revue Nationale ne fut pas un refus; j'ai seulement dit ne pouvoir rien promettre. Je présume qu'il n'y a pas incompatibilité entre les deux Revues; je sais, du reste, combien l'une d'elles est plus importante que l'autre. Cependant je voudrais conserver, à cet égard, toute ma liberté.
Je suis bien aise que mon livre se soutient dans votre opinion favorable au troisième examen. Peut-être aurais-je dû faire une note sur la Constituante de 1789.3 Cet exemple ne compte pour rien en faveur de l'élection à deux Edition: current; Page: [761] dégrés, car il y a des momens où l'opinion générale se fait jour à travers tout obstacle, et où les modes d'élection les plus divers aboutissent à des résultats à peu près identiques: il en était ainsi en 1789, et je pense que le tiers état aurait nommé, en général, les mêmes députés sous un système électoral beaucoup plus défectueux. La question des renouvellements partiaux n'est pas fondamentale: au reste, je ne crois pas les avoir condamnés d'une manière absolue.
Mon article sur vos deux livres est accepté par Reeve,4 mais pour le numéro d'avril, ou peut-être même pour celui de juillet. L'écrit sur la doctrine de l'utilité a paru dans Fraser's Magazine (Octobre, Novembre, et Decembre).5 J'ai laissé mon éditeur le maître de décider le moment de le réimprimer en volume, mais n'ayant rien appris sur ses intentions, je présume que cette réimpression est ajournée.
Veuillez offrir à Madame Dupont-White et à vos demoiselles mes hommages respectueux, auxquels ma fille vous prie d'ajouter l'expression de ses sentiments amicaux. Votre tout dévoué.
A long letter from you is indeed a pleasure. We are very sorry that you and Mrs. Grote are unable to join us, but the reasons you give are superabundantly conclusive.2 Your life and health are so important to the world, and besides, so valuable to myself, that on either interpretation of our common standard of ethics I have the strongest reason against wishing you to expose them to any danger. I must be content with the minor pleasure of writing to you from Athens, and reporting to you what I have seen after our return.Edition: current; Page: [762]
I do not see that the opinions you express in your letter on practical ethics3 constitute any difference between us. I agree in them entirely, and I consider them to follow conclusively from the conception of our own happiness as a unit, neither more nor less valuable than that of another, or, in Christian language, the doctrine of loving one's neighbour as oneself, this being of course understood not of the feeling or sentiment of love, but of perfect ethical impartiality between the two. The general happiness, looked upon as composed of as many different units as there are persons, all equal in value except as far as the amount of the happiness itself differs, leads to all the practical doctrines which you lay down. First, it requires that each shall consider it as his special business to take care of himself: the general good requiring that that one individual should be left, in all ordinary circumstances, to his own care, and not taken care of for him, further than by not impeding his own efforts, nor allowing others to do so. The good of all can only be pursued with any success by each person's taking as his particular department the good of the only individual whose requirements he can thoroughly know; with due precautions to prevent these different persons, each cultivating a particular strip of the field, from hindering one another. Secondly, human happiness, even one's own, is in general more successfully pursued by acting on general rules, than by measuring the consequences of each act; and this is still more the case with the general happiness, since any other plan would not only leave everybody uncertain what to expect, but would involve perpetual quarrelling: and hence general rules must be laid down for people's conduct to one another, or in other words, rights and obligations must, as you say, be recognised; and people must, on the one hand, not be required to sacrifice even their own less good to another's greater, where no general rule has given the other a right to the sacrifice; while, when a right has been recognised, they must, in most cases, yield to that right even at the sacrifice, in the particular case, of their own greater good to another's less. These rights and obligations are (it is of course implied) reciprocal. And thus what each person is held to do for the sake of others is more or less definite, corresponding to the less perfect knowledge he can have of their interests, taken individually; and he is free to employ the indefinite residue of his exertions in benefitting the one person of whom he has the principal charge, and whose wants he has the means of learning the most completely. These, I think, are exactly your conclusions. And they are consistent with recognising the merit, though not the duty, of making still greater sacrifices of our own less good to the greater good of others, than the general conditions of human happiness render it expedient to prescribe. This last distinction, Edition: current; Page: [763] which I do not think inconsistent with the expressions about perfection attributed to Christ, the Catholic theologians have recognized, laying down a lower standard of disinterestedness for the world and a higher one for the "perfect" (the saints): but Protestants have in general considered this as Popish laxity, and have maintained that it is the duty of every one, absolutely to annul his own separate existence.
I am very glad that you like the papers on Utilitarianism so much.4 I am not more sanguine than you are about their converting opponents. The most that writing of that sort can be expected to do, is to place the doctrine in a better light, and prevent the other side having everything their own way, and triumphing in their moral and metaphysical superiority as they have done for the last half century and as they do in France still more than in England. In Germany the tide seems to be turning; & there is a commencement of turning even here. It was only lately that M. Schérer,5 one of the heretical Protestant theologians of France (who gave up a theological professorship at Strasbourg because he could not believe the doctrine of Biblical inspiration) declared in the Revue des Deux Mondes that the inductive and utilitarian ethics were now shewing that they could produce as good & noble fruits as the other doctrine.6
My meditations on Sir W. Hamilton's work have shaped themselves into an intention that an examination of his philosophy considered as representative of the best form of Germanism, shall be the subject of the next book I write:7 for it cannot be done in anything less than a book, without assuming points which it is of great importance to prove. I have tolerably well settled in my own mind what I have got to say on most of the principal points. But I do not feel properly equipped for such a piece of work until I have read your account of Plato,8 in which I expect to find much new and valuable thought on the great problems of metaphysics. It is some consolation for your not going over Greece with us, to think that you will be finishing Plato, which I hope may be ready for publication by the end of the year.Edition: current; Page: [764]
I have written nothing since coming here except an article on Centralization,9 which has been accepted by Reeve but not for the January nor perhaps for the April number. There will be nothing in it new or particularly interesting to you. I meant to have written a paper on the American question, but the miserable incident of the Trent10 came in the way. If that goes off favourably, which now seems more probable than the contrary, the world has had a narrow escape from one of the greatest calamities of this century.
I quite agree in your high estimate of Bain's new book.11
We think of leaving Avignon about the 29th, arriving at Athens about the 22nd of February.
With our kind regards to Mrs Grote I am
[P.S.]—As you truly say the Protagorean Socrates lays down as the standard, the happiness of the agent himself;12 but his standard is composed of pleasure and pain, which ranges him, upon the whole, on the utilitarian side of the controversy.
I received your letter of August 26th here, and read it with great interest. I have since watched the progress of politics in your colony by means of the letters in the Times which I read with a degree of confidence that I should not have given them if I had not known their authorship:2 I should now, however, have been able to divine it, if you had not told me. The course of affairs under your present Constitution is exactly what it is likely to be under the falsely called democracy in which manual labourers alone are really represented.3 The old countries will in time come under similar influences, Edition: current; Page: [765] and the only way to mitigate them is to struggle courageously against them, as you do, but as the more educated classes in America do not; and to strive always for a fair representation of minorities. I look upon that as the sheet anchor of the democracy of the future. If it is not adopted, there is no knowing that society may not be barbarized down into not only a dead level of narrow minded stupidity, but into lawlessness; what French writers call la souveraineté du but being accepted as the supreme rule, and the but being, to make everything conform to the will (even the passing and momentary will) of the dominant majority. This particular feature of evil, which had scarcely begun to shew itself in the United States even when Tocqueville wrote, has made fearful advances since. We are here in the heart of a difficulty and danger wholly brought upon us by that spirit. Governments have often enough acted lawlessly, but even the first Napoleon, in the height of his despotism, never professed lawlessness; he seized the Duke of Enghien4 exactly as the Americans seized the senators in New Granada;5 but he never did what the American Government by its organ Mr Seward6 has done within the last month—profess in a public despatch that in the position his country is now in it is not bound by international rules or precedents. That open repudiation of law, and assertion of mere will and convenience, by a great nation, though it has escaped even the bitter comments of the Times, is to my mind the most alarming fact, for the future of the human race, that has occurred for generations past.
In all other respects your country seems to be thriving wonderfully. The particulars in your letter, of the reduction of household expenses from the enormous rates which had kept up for some years after the gold fever began, are very striking, and are most satisfactory indications of the return of society economically considered, to a normal condition. What you say about public libraries, schools, and the University, and about the eagerness for the better sort of new books, is very pleasant to read of, and very creditable to Edition: current; Page: [766] the country. It gives me great pleasure to hear of your own prosperity, and to think of the influence which your position both socially and politically7 is likely to give you in turning things into the best channel which the conditions of the state of society admit of. I was interested also by what you say concerning your son,8 whom I shall be glad to see, and should be still more glad to be in any way useful to. I shall not, however, be in England for a good many months to come, as we set out in a few weeks to travel in Greece and Turkey, and shall return here before going to England.
Many thanks for the Argus.9 I received another number of it lately (but I should think, not from you) containing a letter against Mr Hare's plan, the objections in which are the same inconclusive ones which have been made in England. But I was glad to perceive by the first sentence that the Argus has itself written in recommendation of the plan. It is decidedly making its way and has now defenders in America and on the Continent of Europe. I am
[I shall probably be encouraged to ask you a question] now and then about Indian affairs. The rise of prices which you tell me has taken place, I can throw no light on. If permanent it must, I suppose, depend upon the same cause which is slowly raising prices through the whole commercial world, namely, the gold discoveries;2 though why this cause should have acted with so much greater visible force in Bengal than it has hitherto done in Europe, I cannot perceive. Can it be (since India has so long been the gulph into which silver has been constantly sinking and never reappearing) that the great upturning of things and persons which has taken place in India, among its other effects, has had Edition: current; Page: [767] that of bringing some of the hoarded silver into circulation? That would be an adequate cause, but scarcely seems a probable one. In the case of rice, the great export trade to Europe from the Bay of Bengal,3 which had sprung up within a few years previous to my leaving India House, may go far to account for a rise of price.
You have probably heard from Mr Leslie what is doing in the Political Economy Club with a view to giving the privileges of Honorary Members to the Professors in the Queen's University. The proposal will be brought before the Club on the 6th of February with the unanimous recommendation of the Committee, consisting of Mr Newmarch, Mr Blake,2 and myself, and I am very confident that it will be adopted.3
I have been hoping to see an advertisement of your essay on the American question,4 or to hear from you respecting its progress. I fear that the Trent affair may have delayed it, as there was no chance of getting a hearing for the Northern side of the question while we seemed on the brink of war with the United States.5 I seldom experienced so great a feeling of consternation on reading a piece of public news, as I was struck with on the arrival of the first intelligence of that affair. But it is ended, and as well ended as such a thing could be; and I have begun to look out again for tidings of your work. I also resumed a purpose which had been suspended by that untoward affair, of myself writing something on the American contest for immediate publication. The article is finished, and is to come out in the February number of Fraser.6 I much wished when writing it, that I had your papers on the subject Edition: current; Page: [768] to help me, and that they had come out first, so that I might have quoted them. But I hope they will follow soon after, and that others will be encouraged by our example, to help in bearing up against the stream.
We propose starting on the 29th of this month for Athens, and letters addressed Poste Restante there, will reach me till near the end of May.
Le livre que vous avez eu la bonté de m'envoyer2 s'est trouvé être en effet le même que j'avais reçu il y a trois ou quatre ans. Il ne m'est pas pour cela inutile; je suis en train de le relire et j'en déjà relu une grande partie. Ce livre me paraît très remarquable sous le rapport de l'exposition et de l'expression. Il résume les plus importantes doctrines de M. Comte avec une clarté que lui-même n'a pas surpassée, et de manière à offrir souvent, pour ainsi dire, de nouveaux reflets de lumière par la manière de présenter les idées. Quant à la question qui fait, à ce qu'il paraît, votre principale différence avec M. Comte je suis assurément et pleinement de votre avis. Je crois, pourtant, que mon dissentiment va plus loin que le vôtre.3 On ne saurait faire mieux sentir que vous ne le faites la distinction fondamentale des pouvoirs temporel et spirituel, la nécessité de ce dernier, son existence universelle sous une forme ou sous une autre, et les suites funestes de sa réunion avec le pouvoir temporel. Voici maintenant en quoi je crois être en dissentiment avec vous. Je suis très porté à croire (sans vouloir décider positivement cette question pour l'avenir) que la nature même d'un pouvoir spirituel légitime ne comporte pas une organisation réelle. Tant qu'un accord essentiel de doctrines n'existe pas parmi les chefs spirituels, toute tentative d'organisation, en la supposant praticable, serait évidemment nuisible. Si au contraire, cet accord existait il me semble que l'organisation en corps ne serait pas Edition: current; Page: [769] nécessaire. L'autorité, qu'exerce dans les sciences positives l'opinion des savants, ne repose pas, ce me semble, sur leur réunion en Académies ou sous tout autre nom, mais sur le fait même de leur unanimité. D'ailleurs, leur organisation me donnerait des craintes sérieuses pour l'indépendance de la pensée. Tout corps scientifique organisé est toujours plus ou moins porté à repousser les innovations scientifiques, qui, pourtant, ne laissent pas d'être quelquefois nécessaires même dans les sciences qui ont reçu définitivement leur constitution positive. J'incline à croire que, lorsque l'accord général des opinions de ceux qui ont fait les études nécessaires s'étendra aux questions morales et sociologiques, la classe spéculative pourra être la classe enseignante, et exercer une grande et salutaire autorité morale, sans être organisée en corps sous une autorité dirigeante qui me semble toujours dangereuse. Je sais que la morale positive repousse toute prétention à se servir de moyens coercitifs pour agir sur les rénovateurs; mais l'opinion générale, ralliée par une puissante autorité morale suffit toujours pour exercer une pression tyrannique sur la pensée; et je ne puis oublier que M. Comte lui-même est allé jusqu'à vouloir détruire, à la manière des premiers chrétiens, les documents historiques du passé.
Cette manière de penser me conduit à admettre une certaine modification dans le principe de la non-participation des esprits spéculatifs au pouvoir temporel. Je conviens non seulement que la capacité philosophique ne doit nullement être un titre aux fonctions politiques, mais encore que les philosophes ne doivent pas, en règle générale, gouverner ni administrer, sauf les cas exceptionnels qui naissent des exigences d'une époque de transition, sauf aussi l'avantage que pourra retirer leur propre développement philosophique d'une certaine initiation dans les affaires pratiques de la vie, laquelle doit avoir lieu dans leur jeunesse et sous une autorité supérieure. Mais il me semble que les philosophes peuvent être très à leur places dans les assemblées politiques délibérantes; ce qui tient à ce que je conçois la fonction de ces assemblées tout autrement que selon l'idée ordinaire. Je les crois très peu propres à faire des lois, mais très utiles comme organes de l'opinion, soit pour critiquer tant la législation que l'administration, soit pour y donner ou refuser, en dernier lieu, la sanction nationale. Vous voyez que c'est une sorte de pouvoir spirituel que je leur accède, au sein même du pouvoir temporel. J'ai développé cette idée dans un volume sur le gouvernement représentatif, dont une traduction française est à la veille de paraître.4 Dès qu'elle aura paru, je vous prierai d'en accepter un exemplaire. Je ne vous offre pas l'ouvrage anglais, ne sachant pas si vous avez l'habitude de la langue anglaise. Cet ouvrage, si vous lui faites l'honneur de le lire, vous mettra au courant de l